Chutney

The greenhouse I inherited from my late father has been put to good use this year…..unfortunately it’s provided me with a glut of tomatoes, of which many remained stubbornly green.

I’ve also inherited an apple tree that has become rather unruly, mainly through lack of proper care, pruning etc – it still produced an enormous crop of sweet apples.

Q: What do do with this excess?

A: Make green tomato chutney. Obvious really.

A search through my Delia books didn’t reveal any recipes I felt confident in tackling, but the good old BBC Good Food website certainly did, and here it is.

The recipe produces around 3kg of the lovely stuff.

Ingredients

• 2½ kg green tomatoes
• 500g onions
• 1 rounded tbsp salt
• 500g sultanas
• 500g cooking apples
• 500g light muscovado sugar
• 1.14l jar spiced pickling vinegar (Sarson’s)

Method

• STEP 1

Slice the tomatoes (you can skin them if you want, but it's not necessary). Finely chop the onions. Layer both in a large bowl with the salt. Leave overnight.

• STEP 2

The next day, chop the sultanas using a large, sharp knife, then peel, core and chop the apples. Put the sugar and vinegar into a large pan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the sultanas and apples and simmer for 10 mins. Strain the tomatoes and onions in a colander (but don’t rinse), then tip into the pan and return to the boil.

• STEP 3

Simmer for about 1 hr, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick and pulpy. Transfer to warmed, sterilised jars and cover with lids.

And so it was.

The recipe calls for cooking apples, I only had sweet dessert apples, even so the result was a deliciously sweet / sour chutney.

I was surprised that Step 1 of the recipe extracted a huge amount of water from the tomatoes and onions. Everything went to plan, there were no dramas.

The chopped onions and tomatoes, ready to fester overnight

Burbling nicely

3kg is a lot of chutney, I ended up with 8 jars

 If you have a glut of green tomatoes and plenty of jars, and a bit of time on your hands, you know what to do!