Making chutney is one of those things considered the domain of elderly women, who make it for the church fete and sold to raised much needed funds. The recipients put it at the back of, or in the door of the fridge and there it lingers.
But chutney making is fun and a great way to use allotment overstocks, or giveaway bargains in the reduce to clear counters at the supermarket.
You can almost guarantee that every chutney you make will be different – vegetables, fruit, sugars, vinegars, spices all add to the mix of a successful chutney and some you find will work better than other. This article by Hugh Roadkill Whittingstall, is really quite good –
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/25/pickle-recipes
Basically stick to 2kg of vegetables and fruit, to 250g sugar and 400ml vinegar.
If I use less fruit I use more sugar………….and if I use watery vegetables then I use less vinegar. Experiment with different fruit – apples, pears, raisins, apricots, and with different soft and hard vegetables – courgettes and tomatoes, carrots, parsnips and green beans. Onions feature in all my chutney, but play with garlic, chilli and ginger.
The reason I am telling you this is because a few weeks ago I popped into a supermarket and I noticed a huge stack of cherry tomatoes at a ridiculous reduced price of 5p for 400g cartons. I bought six for 30p and used them as the basis for my chutney the following weekend.
I upped the weight to 3kg and added onions, carrots, apple and raisins. The result seven full 1lb jars of Hot Tomato Chutney for probably less then the cost of one respectable brands!
I save old honey jars to use for my chutney. It’s a pain removing the old labels but a lot cheaper than buying new jars and of course if a good way of making use of glass for a second, and third, time. Once clean I put a small amount of boiling water in each jar and then literally bake in a hot over for ten minutes. The lids I clean and boil in a pan of water so that I have everything ready for bottling up!
