Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Its raining again and the only thing for it on a cold and wet day is to stay home, catch up on some reading, watch a load of recorded stuff on the foxtel IQ and cook up a batch of Apple Chutney for the church market day.

I love this recipe, I clipped it from the Sainsbury Magazine that I used to buy with my groceries in London. I loved that magazine and almost every month I would end up tearing the magazine apart and saving most of the recipes.

This recipe is from the September 2005 magazine in a section called Cooking with Confidence concentrating on pickles and chutneys. I absolutely LOVE chutneys and can think of nothing nicer than a plate of crackers, some mature, crumbly chedder and a jar of chutney. I like strong flavours, the tang of vinegar mixed with a sweet and spicey combination and this recipe has all those components.

I have adapted the recipe by substituting granny smith apples for the bramleys it calls for and when I am making a batch for gifts (last Christmas) or church, I double the quantities and just cook it for a couple of hours longer.
Apple Chutney

1kg apples, peeled and cored
3 medium onions, peeled
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
95g piece of ginger, peeled
1x 500ml bottle of apple cider vinegar
1x 500g bag of dark brown sugar
315g raisins
1 cinammon stick
1 tablespoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt

Pulse the apples in batches until finely chopped, add to large saucepan.
Pulse the onions, garlic and ginger until finely chopped, add to the apples.
Add the vinegar, brown sugar, raisins, cinammon, mixed spice, cayenne, 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt and 100mls of cold water.
Bring to the boil, stirring frequently, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1-2 hours until the vinegar has evaporated and the chutney is reduced and soft. Watch that it doesn't stick.
Preheat your oven to 150C and heat your clean, dry jars. Remove the cinammon stick from the chutney and fill the jars while the mixture is still hot.

I like to seal the jars with melted wax and I have a cheap, little saucepan that I use to melt plain candles down. I pour this onto the cool chutney and then screw the lids on tightly.

This chutney is good the day after but matures well and tastes great after a few weeks. The recipe says that it will last for up to a year if kept in a dark, cool place.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never made chutney before. I should give this a try - looks yum!

I love Sainsburys. UK supermarkets are so good. I used to work at Sainsburys head office in London and they had the best staff canteen!! (And it was a nice place to work too)

The Jackson Files said...

Ha ha...when I first read this I thought it said 315 raisins, and I was all like...Sarah has WAY too much time on her hands if she can count out raisis for chutney.

The Jackson Files said...

Um...that's raisiNs. My n is sticking on my laptop. Grrrrr