Apple Chutney recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chutney and Pickles | 252 comments
Our apples make great chutney
I’m not surprised that the fruit that tempted Eve was an apple. It is such a useful fruit. From sweet apple puree to flagons of frothy cider, the apple plays a major role in our lives.
It always troubles me when I see apples left unpicked on trees. We’ve had a great cooking apple harvest this year. Danny and I have spent the morning picking apples from the old trees in our tiny orchard. We are going to make cider this year and have a go at apple wine. So we left a great pile of them on the garden table to soften in the frosts.
If you do this it’s easier to extract the juice. The ones that we pick from the tree are wrapped in newspaper and stored in cardboard boxes in the shed. The mice do nibble a few but the majority keep through the winter until we need them.
The windfalls don’t keep. Even if they look good they are bruised when they hit the ground. We have loads of windfalls, so we decided to branch out and add apple chutney to our range. As with our plum chutney we wanted a fruit rather than a vegetable taste.
This delicate chutney is the result.
| Cottage Smallholder Apple Chutney recipe |
- 1.5 k of cooking apples
- 500g of onions
- 500g of sultanas
- 750g Demerara sugar
- 500ml of white wine vinegar
- Zest and juice of two lemons
- I small chilli
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp of cinnamon
- Pinch of ground cloves
- ½ tsp of Maldon sea salt
- 8 peppercorns
- 1 tbsp of mustard seed
- Wash, peel, core and chop the apples fine
- Peel and chop and mince the onions (if you don’t have a mincer chop them very fine)
- Put all ingredients into a large heavy bottomed saucepan and bring slowly to the boil. Stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
- Then simmer very gently, bubbles barely breaking the surface, until the chutney has thickened, stiring every now and then.
- It is ready when drawing a spoon across the surface leaves a definite track mark. This will take at least four hours.
- Pot into warm sterilised jars with plastic lined lids (how do I sterilise jars and lids? See Tips and Tricks below).
- Don’t use cellophane lids as the vinegar will evaporate through these and your chutney will dry up.
- Label when cold and store in a cool, dry place.
- Leave to mature for a month. The longer that you leave it to mature the better it will be!
Tips and Tricks
<strong>How do I get rid of tainted smells in pots?</strong>
If your cooking pot or container is tainted with the smell of the last resident (curry, tomato sauce etc). Sprinkle with a good tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda into it and add a good splosh of boiling water. Rub the solution over all surfaces and leave for two minutes. Rinse well in cold water.
<strong>How do I sterilise jars and lids?</strong>
The sterilising method that we use is simple. When the chutney is cooked, I quickly wash and rinse the jars and place them upside down in a cold oven. Set the temperature to 160c (140c fan assisted). When the oven has reached the right temperature I turn off the heat. The jars will stay warm for quite a while. I only use plastic lined metal lids for preserves as the all-metal lids can go rusty. I boil these for five minutes in water to sterilise them. If I use Le Parfait jars, I do the same with the rubber rings.
Leave a reply
Hi there, thanks for the wonderful website! I just made a batch of this using crab apples and apple cider vinegar. It came out tasting very sweet and strongly of vinegar, and I wonder if the crab apples possibly have a smaller yield of diced apples than normal apples would (if that makes sense)? Or do the flavors tone down after maturation? I’m so impatient. =) This is my first attempt at chutney and very excited to see how it evolves!
Hi Rachel
I don’t know what went wrong. I must admit I only tend to use fresh Bramleys.
As you say it’s all grist to the mill so thank you for leaving this comment.
I gave this a whirl yesterday as I have tried lots of your recipes and they have always been marvellous.
Even though I cooked on the absolute lowest setting and the bubbles were only just plopping through, after 3 hours the chutney looked done but being sceptical I cooked for an extra 20 mins which was still less than recommended in the recipe. Potted up but today it looks very dark and very thick as if its overdone.
I suspect that it might be because I used Bramleys that had been stored so they might not be as juicy as fresh ones and as a result there was less liquid to evaporate.
Just wanted to post this as a suggestion to others that it might not take as long if you use older fruit.
Love the site and will definately try again 🙂
Hi Emmeline
I do hope that it tastes good.
Ended up cooking it half on a small hob for another two hours. Left it over night and was going to heat it further, but it was just so stodgy by this point it could only stick and burn. Hopefully it is all okay. It looks very dark and sticky and smells good, so hopefully all is well.
Hi Emmeline
Bad luck. It might be best to cook it in a very low oven.
Agh! My chutney has burnt on the bottom of the pan 1.5 hours in. Reading the comments above, I guess this is because I am using a gas hob and it is impossible to turn it down low enough. I plan to transfer to a smaller pan and smaller hob and stir frequently. Possibly add a bit of water.
Have been totally inspired by this site to use my windfalls and have a go at my first ever batch of chutney… unfortunately I did not read closely enough, so I weighed my apples after coring and peeling, so my chutney is not remotely runny and its only been going for 30 mins! shall I press on, and add more vinegar at some point if I think it is getting dry? I’m sure it will end up delicious whatever though, it smells yummy!
Hi – just popping by to say 1st batch of chutney is excellent – going down well – made 2nd batch last night – left it on low whilst watching tv, remembered to stir every 45 mins or so to start with then forgot about it! Hubby said will I turn this off – I thought he meant the light as it was 11.45 and was thinking of bed when I realised it was the chutney!! That woke me up a bit! Oven on, jars in etc – seems to have survived its 5 hr simmer no probs – funny listening to the jars pop from bed! Planning to use some of this batch for Christmas presents – 1st batch going fast as 8yr old son has developed a taste for it!!
Hello Fiona,
Many thanks for your reply. Tomatoes coming to the end, but still some green ones left. Any ideas about what I can do with them (apart from chutney as I have already made 3 batches). There are still a few cooking apples knocking around.
Best wishes,
Karen B