Odds & sods, that’s what my kitchen is currently full of. To be more specific, I’ve got a lot of odd fruits & veggies from the garden as thing’s begin to wind down for the Autumn & new thing’s begin to take on life. A glut of autumnal apples, the last of the ripening tomatoes, some cured onions, a handful of chillies… a real eclectic mix. When the last harvests come around every year, it’s tradition for me to turn all of my surplus garden produce into a big batch of autumn chutney, enough to see me through the winter. What better way to use up what’s left from the summer growing season than a hearty chutney! A chutney so good that I continue to make it year after year (this coming from a girl who makes a lot of chutneys!).
Now, it just wouldn’t be autumn without jars of this in the cupboard. Each year will be a slight variation on the last, depending on exactly what it is that I have to use up but this year, I think I nailed the perfect mix of homegrown fruits & veggies for me. Sweet, tangy & warming this adds a welcome hit of flavour to liven up dishes in the cold winter days to come. Plus, like a fine wine, once bottled up this chutney only gets better with age as it’s flavours meld & mingle together into one, I like to tuck a few jars of this away for Christmas. Like most chutneys, there’s an awful lot of weighing & chopping involved but very little else effort wise, plus you can adapt to your hearts content, use what you have, even down to green tomatoes!
AUTUMN CHUTNEY
Ingredients:
- 1 kg tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 kg apples, finely chopped into small cubes
- 4 onions, finely chopped
- 3 chillies, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- Thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
- 300g sultanas
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 500g soft light brown sugar
- 350ml cider vinegar
Method:
- Add all of the ingredients except for the sugar & vinegar into a large maslin pan or heavy bottomed saucepan
- Give everything a good stir before turning on the heat to a medium -high temperature cook for 20-25 minutes until the tomatoes & apples have begun to soften & released a lot of their juices
- Add the sugar & vinegar to the pan & continue to heat until all of the sugar has dissolved
- Once dissolved, increase the heat & bring the pan to the boil
- As soon as you’ve reached a boil, reduce to a medium head and simmer the mixture for 35 minutes, stirring often to make sure that it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan
- After 35 minutes the liquid should have reduced down leaving you with a thickened, pulpy chutney (if not, continue for a further 5 minutes)
- Pot up the chutney into a clean, sterilised jars
