Making Chutney (8 November 2018)

Ok, so I tried to come up with a clever and witty title for this one – and failed.  Chutney.  Not a word that lends itself easily to rhyme or humour, but a classic addition to the traditional Ploughman’s Lunch; a go-to accompaniment to cold meats and cheese, and an ideal way to preserve allotment fruit and veg.  And OH so typically English, right?  Well, yeah-but-no-but.  As a savoury preserve made from fruit and veg simmered with sugar, vinegar and spices, chutney has it’s origins in British Colonialism.   Yup; as with so many aspects of this small island’s insular culture (think tea, marmalade, and Chicken Tikka Masala) chutney is an idea adapted from elsewhere; the sugar and spices a legacy of British Empire expansion, and the word itself rooted in the Hindi  चटनी chaṭnī, meaning ‘to lick’.  I am not sure I’d want to be ‘licking’ chutney up all on it’s own, but it’s definitely a good thing to have stashed in the cupboard; a great way to use up allotment gluts, and something I’ve been experimenting with in recent years.   Turns out chutney is easy to make, once you know the basics.  Endless ingredient combinations are possible, meaning that no two batches need ever turn out the same (although they can if you want them to: just write it down so you can roll out your own signature recipe, time after time).  Stored in super-clean, tightly-sealed jars, chutney will keep for aaaaages (years and years) and – bonus – gets better with age.

I’ve no idea where I first found my recipe – or, more accurately, the recipes – on which my own is based.  Certainly it would have involved some internet clicking, flicking through various books, a few pages pulled from magazines.  And then some experimenting with ingredients, proportions and cooking times.  Wherever it began I now have my own tried and tested preference, which I adapt to whatever ingredients I have available to use.   My two most recent variants have involved a small mountain of apples given to me by a friend, together with my own surplus of tomatoes and chillies; the second batch including Hallowe’en pumpkin innards.   Two afternoons steaming up the kitchen in a sugar-vinegar-spice ‘aromatherapy’ session = a shelf now laden with jars packed with produce that I’d otherwise struggle to find a use for.  Chutney is not, however, the place for old or passed-its-best produce.  Ingredients need to be fresh, with any bruises, blemishes and rotten bits removed. Good ingredients = good chutney.

Ingredients & equipment:  the whole point with making chutney is that you can vary it, according to whatever you have and how you want the end result to come out tasting.  The basic (but endlessly flexible) rule is: vegetables & fruit, sugar, vinegar and spices.  See below for proportions (weights and measurements).

Fruit & Vegetables:  layer the flavours and textures; aim to balance savoury/sweet.  Onions are essential, for flavour and texture (unless of course you really dislike onions).  Garlic; not essential, but chuck it in if you want.  Apples, and other sweet fruit and ‘veg’ such as tomatoes, pumpkins and squash.  Maybe also a smaller amount of dried fruit – dates, sultanas, apricots, even figs or prunes, to add flavour and colour.  Then a more savoury layer; courgette, maybe some roots (carrots, sweet potato, parsnips, turnips, swede, even beetroot).   Some people use up green beans in chutney.  I’ve never tried.  But that’s just me.  Avoid starchy veg, such as potatoes, as these generally don’t work in chutney – plus they do not need preserving in this way, because they keep well enough on their own.  Nor would I use green leaves, such as kale or cabbage; that would just be weird.  Chop everything the same size; small chunks or slices, so it all cooks down at the same rate.  The classic shop-bought Big Brand ‘pickle’ (you know the one) contains rutabaga (otherwise known as swede), carrots, onions, cauliflower and courgette, together with apples, dates, tomato paste and gherkins – coloured with caramel and thickened with cornstarch (neither of which you need in your own homemade).

Sugar: always some sort of brown, for flavour and colour.  Chutney made with white sugar would come out pale and uninteresting, and more than a tad strange.

Vinegar: very much a personal preference.  I avoid malt – it may be cheap, but it is harsh, and overpowering – and stick instead to wine or cider vinegar, with sometimes a small amount of balsamic substituted in the total.  But this is your chutney; your choice.

Spices: again personal preference.  Whatever works with the fruit and veg combo.  Final taste can be tweaked with dry spices added towards the end.  And remember, the taste will mature over time, as the chutney is stored; melding and deepening the flavours.

PROPORTIONS (weights and measurements): recipe can be scaled up, according to how much fruit and veg you have to use up – and the size of your pan.  Smaller batches are best, for both taste and ease.   So long as you keep the proportions in balance, it shouldn’t go wrong:

Fruit and veg; 1kg total in combination.  For example, 300g each of onion, apples, tomatoes, with 100g  dried fruit of your choice (data, sultanas, even figs or prunes).  Play around with what you have available, and what you like to eat.  If using fresh chillies (as opposed to dried), include these in the fruit & veg total weight.  Then, for every 1kg of fruit/veg mix you will need 167g sugar and 330ml vinegar, with spices according to taste; no exact weights, just play around and find your own way.   

And if those odd numbers are confusing, try 600g fruit/veg, 100g sugar, and 200ml vinegar – again multiplying up, for larger batches.

You will need a large heavy-based pan, suitable for simmering over a slow heat for a long time, large enough to hold a LOT of ingredients, with room to stir – and to do this, a long-handled large wooden spoon (metal spoons scraping pans = not such a great idea).  And of course, glass jars.  With twist-top metal vinegar-proof lids.  You can re-use jars.  And you can sometimes re-use lids; the key point is they must be vinegar-proof, not smell of whatever they’ve been used for previously, and with the plastic inner seal sufficiently intact to close properly again; the idea is to keep air out (from the finished product) preventing the growth of bacterial mould, thus enabling long-term storage.  New lids cost mere pennies, and are worth investing in; rather than make do with less-than-perfect old ones.  The jars will need sterilising.  The easiest way is to wash them, then heat in the oven (more of this later).  Or put them in the dishwasher on hottest setting.  They must be absolutely clean and completely dry before the chutney goes in.

Method:

1. Wash and rinse your jars, and also if they need it, the lids.  Put jars into oven ready to sterilise – keep the oven at this point switched off.  (or sterilise in dishwasher, whichever you prefer).  The lids also need to be be completely clean and totally dry.  Do not, however, attempt to sterilise them in the oven at the same time as the jars; this will only melt the plastic seal, rendering them useless.

2. 

   Chop up all fruit and veg; everything in even size pieces; chunks or slices, as you prefer.  it will look like a LOT, and you may doubt it is all going to fit into those jars.  But it will.  The total mass will reduce to about a third of what you begin with.  (On this basis, you can estimate roughly how many jars you are going to need.  Always prepare a few more jars than you think you need – just in case).

3. Add everything together into pan.
4. Heat gently, stirring occasionally, so that the sugar dissolves and it eventually all comes up to the boil.  You can add a lid to speed this up.  Then reduce the heat right down and simmer slowly for as long as it takes – with lid now off.

   

   The slower the better, in my experience.  The chutney with progress through a series of stages, from (1) pan full of individually recognisable pieces, separating out into (2) a two-layer sweet-vinegar soup; half-cooked chunks below with liquid floating above; which will then reduce and converge into a thick gloop, increasingly recognisable as ‘chutney’.

   

   If you want a finer texture, or if some of the harder veg are not breaking down, you can help things along with a potato masher.  Or not.  Choice is yours.  You’ll know it’s done when (3) it reaches the ‘mud geyser’ stage; surplus liquid all evaporated off, total ingredients melded into a mush, through which the heat will rise to erupt in gentle (or not so gentle!) pops and plops, splattering out of the pan.

   

   To be absolutely sure, run the wooden spoon through, and if the line it creates remains visible for a brief moment (as opposed to flattening out to disappear immediately) then you are there.  The whole process can take anything up to four hours – so be prepared to read a book, listen to the radio, or write a novel while you wait – checking progress regularly along the way.  This last stage is when it can all go suddenly wrong, as the lack of liquid means the mix can at this point catch and burn.  If this happens, do not panic.  Turn the heat off and assess the damage.  Do not mix the burned bits into the finished product; just leave them there on the bottom of the pan.  On a positive note; a small amount of gentle ‘burn’ can actually add depth of flavour!  But if the chutney begins to catch too far before it’s finished cooking, best thing is to transfer into another pan, keep calm and carry on …

5. When the chutney is nearing ‘done’, sterilise you jars.  Simply switch the oven on, to 120^o / gasmark 2, and leave for 10-15 minutes.  Then turn off.  The idea is to dry completely, and kill off any bacteria or mould spores.  If the lids are still damp, they can go into the oven also for a short time, but only after it has cooled down from ‘hot’ to ‘warm’, just to dry them off.  Allow the jars and the chutney to both cool slightly before the next stage, though you do need both to still be quite hot, when you put the chutney into the jars.  Use a folded towel or oven mitt when handling the hot jars.  (But, truthfully, if you actually need to be told this, then you probably shouldn’t be left alone in the kitchen, messing around with a big pan of hot bubbling chutney and an oven full of hot glass jars).
6.  Spoon the chutney into the jars.  Fill up nearly to the top.  The chutney should not touch the lid, but you do want as narrow a gap as possible, between the two (keeping the air space minimal, for bacteria and mould control).  And take your time; smaller rather than larger spoonfuls, to avoid trapping too much air as bubbles in the finished product.  Use a wide-neck funnel to avoid spilling chutney down the outside of jars.  Tap each filled jar gently but firmly a few times on the worktop, to level the  surface and allow air to rise and  escape.
7. Put on the lids.  Do this while the chutney is still quite hot.  Twist the lids firmly but not too tightly shut – as the chutney cools it creates a vacuum, causing the lid to tighten a little more.  Leave to cool.  Oh, and now wash-up …
8. When cold, add labels, and stash away in your cupboard.
9. Experiment and have fun.  Add to your stash and, every now and then – over the coming weeks, months, years – open the cupboard and admire your glistening jars, and feel pleased with yourself; you are the Chutney King / Queen.