Chutney with a kick
27 08 2007
When the Wee ‘Un and I inspected the tomato plants this morning, it was obvious it was time to start making chutneys and relishes as some of the larger green fruit on the Tigerella and Marmande Super plants were getting a hint of red.
After getting a bowl from the kitchen, we set to work to find as many large green tomatoes as we could, eventually picking just over two pounds between us. As we like our chutneys to be made with as many of our own vegetables as possible, it was time to head outside…
…where, as I’d noted a couple of days ago, there were a few ripe apples on the old tree in front of the house. Most need to ripen further, but three were perfect for adding to a chutney. Then it was through to the byre to collect a couple of onions and a head of garlic from the drying racks.
I wanted a fairly spicy green tomato chutney that tied together 2lb of green tomatoes, 1/2lb of apples and 1/2lb onion. It also had to use up a piece of ginger root that was sitting in the refrigerator alongside half a lemon. After looking through a couple of cookbooks, I couldn’t find anything that exactly fit my needs but Mary Norwak’s The Farmhouse Kitchen had two recipes for green tomato chutney with elements that fitted what I wanted. It was time to pull out an old envelope, list my ingredients, modify the two recipes and come up with something fresh to suit our tastes.
The recipe as first devised was: 2lb green tomatoes, cored and chopped; 1/2lb green/red apples, cored, peeled and chopped; 1/2lb onion, peeled and chopped, 4oz sultanas, 2oz brown sugar, medium piece of ginger root, peeled and grated; 4 medium garlic cloves; 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes; 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper; the juice of half a lemon and 12fl oz vingear. This was all stirred together in a heavy pan and put on to simmer for 45 minutes. Once the raw ingredients had started to break down, I had a taste and decided to add another two ounces of brown sugar and four fluid ounces of vinegar (bringing the latter up to a 16fl oz in total). Much better!
After 45 minutes, the chutney was still thin and runny although the flavours had developed well. I re-set the timer for another 30 minutes and kept the chutney simmering. One point to remember when making chutneys and relishes is to stir frequently - you do not want burnt chutney! At the end of the cooking time I had a nice thick chutney that was just pourable.
The chutney was then ladled into sterilised, hot bottles. Any air bubbles were worked out with a hit, sterilised steel skewer before the sterilised lids were screwed down. The end result was five-and-a-half jars of spicy green tomato chutney with a good kick and a lot of subtle after flavours. The five full jars will be added to the larder, while the half jar will be kept in the refrigerator for a fortnight to mature and then used immediately.
Sooo, 4oz brown sugar and 16 floz of vinegar all up? What type of vinegar do you prefer? Sounds yummy, now just have to grow lots of tomatoes.
I just use distilled white pickling vinegar with 5% acid. If you can get apple cider vinegar with 5% acid, that would also work well.
May I ask you a question about your jars? The ones in the picture above look like commercial jars being re-used. I’m only starting out learning to bottle things, and the first time I did (tomato ketchup) I used some empty jars I had on hand. The seal seemed to work or at any rate when we opened a jar a couple of weeks later it made the “pop” sound I expected. I made another batch last week and everything went pear-shaped, most of the lids just seemed to be loose and I’m not sure what happened.
I’ve been reading a bit about processing to try and make sure I’ve got all the basics right and have read more than once that it’s a really bad idea to re-use commercial jars and that even if you do, you should never re-use the lids from them. Do you know why that’s so?
Thanks.
You can re-use commercial jars and lids, but with a couple of provisos.
Jams can be bottled in most jars, but acidic foods like chutneys, relishes and pickles should only be bottled in re-used jars capped with lids that came from similarly acidic products. Jam and honey lids often rust when they come into contact with more acidic foods.
You should always keep track of which lid came with which jar. There are standard sizes, but even a millimetre or two difference can make the difference between a good seal and no seal.
You should always check the lids with care before sterilising and using them. Lids with dents, stains or rust should all be disposed of.
You can buy new lids for use on commercial jars and this can be a viable option if you have a lot of identical jars for which replacement lids are available. The cheaper supermarket own-brand jars are often the best bet as they’re much more likely to come in standard sizes than the gourmet brands.
Finally, if it’s so wrong to re-use commercial lids, why is is right to re-use domestic bottling lids? They’re made and used in the same way, after all.
As for your specific problem, did you have the right lids on the right jars? Was the food being bottled hot enough when the lids went on (you want steam coming off so that when the food cools the pressure in the bottle drops)? Did you ensure all the air bubbles were out of the full jars?
yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy that sounds and looks really interesting
Thanks for that. I really feel like it’s one of those things where the knowledge of experience is worth a bit more than the knowledge from the books. That link looks very interesting too.
As for my problem, the lids fit when I tried them (before sterlising), one or two might have gotten mixed up but I wouldn’t have thought that many did, there were a few different size jars. That whole day was a bit of a fiasco and given that I’d been unable to get the ketchup to thicken and had basically run out of time to do anything else I have to admit to a strong sensation of to hell with it. So, I’m keeping the jars which didn’t seem to seal in the fridge and eating ketchup with everything for the next few weeks.
It’s coming into apple season now and having had a couple of early Irish apples at the Seedsavers tent at the Irish Green Gathering recently I am hoping to get a lot of stewed apple into jars to keep me going over the winter and spring. I love apples.
Thank you very much. I’ll try this tomorrow. We live in Spain and have tomatos coming out our ears!! Most of which we have preserved by boiling the jars after filling, but can’t wait to try this chutney.
I’ll be doing a couple more relishes with green tomatoes in them over the next few weeks and will publish the recipes as I do them.
THANK YOU… had a sudden frost here in Rhode Island and I’m stuck with about 15 lbs of green heirloom toms + a load of hot peppers. Was noodling around… found your site and stopped. Hmmm.. just happen to have some quinces in the front garden as well, I see a plan coming together ! If you want to see the result let me know.
Great site, appreciate the share and good luck at the croft. Did a fair amount time in the 90’s as a nonsensical yank trying to re-hedge 50 year overgrown hedge + etc etc in Wales with paas-in-law on his smallholding, so have a very small sense about what you’re up against day-to-day.
Ray, yes, it would be interesting to hear what you’ve made. I’ve also put a few other green tomato recipes here.
[...] When Diana visited last week to gieve us a hand, she kindly stripped our tomato vines of 4lb of green tomatoes. They’ve been sitting in a bowl, waiting for me to get my act together and turn them into something. So, today I decided to make a large batch of spicy green tomato chutney. [...]