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 I would love to try this recipe I have just picked quite a few cooking apples but would pickling vinegar work the same as the white wine vinegar?
Hi Sharon
Pickling vinegar would work but the chutney would need to mature for months as pickling vinegar has such a harsh taste.
Huge number of apple this year. So we have just made a batch up. Tastes good already so I am sure it will get better and better.
Many Thanks
Hi,
Really cool site.
I am going to try the apple recipe but was also wondering if you could do the same with pears? – I guess just use the same quantities just swap the apples for pears?
Thanks,
Gary
Hi Gary
I havent tried making pear chutney yet so can’t really advise you. I’d love to hear how it turns out if you do make some!
hi – love your site!
Have just made my first ever chutney but unfortunately it burnt and the chutney has a smokey taste to it- it actually need some further simmering so ive repotted it but do you know of any thing I could add to diguise the smokiness which isnt over whelming but definately there
thanks
Hi,
Have loads of apples and like the look of this chutney…sick of the same old ones. About sealing jars…a method I learned from my mother and I still use these many years later…Put wax disc on first then using paraffin wax (plain – not the cosmetic kind) gently pour approx 1/2 cm over the top of disc. The, either cover with proper screw tops etc, or cellophane ones will do the trick. My grandmother, before her, used circles cut from cotton which she dipped in wax and affixed on the top of the jar by tieng a string firmly around. Both these methods work. However, it is a lot easier if you have proper screw tops! Thanks for this recipe.
Hi Faye
The viegar will leech out of the cellophane tops! Fine if you are going to eat the chutney quickly but not OK if you want it to mature.
Hi there
I was just reading through your ever evolving list of comments for the apple chutney (which is currently simmering very gently away in my crockpot – fingers crossed this experiment on my behalf works out – i’m very new to the crockpot methodology!). I read that you suggest not using the cellophane discs – is this a complete no-no with chutney? Kind regards
F aye :0)
Hello,looks like a great recipe, am cooking it for the first time.My niece loves tapas,and her favourite is black pudding and apple chutney.She wishes me to recreate a spicy chutney to accompany the black pudding.So hopefully this will be a triumph.I have a 2 oven aga and am leaving it to bubble in the simmering oven at the moment. Is 3 weeks enough time to let it mature?
Hi fn – thanks for response! I’m SO excited now to see how this chutney evolves. I will definitely keep you updated. In the meantime, I made a sloe and crabapple jelly recently that was amaaazing (here’s the recipe if you’re interested. I’ve got some crabs leftover so am going to try your crab apple chili jelly this weekend. Good times ahead!
Hello Monica
Cider vinegar is much rougher than the white wine vinegar stated in the recipe. That’s why your chutney tastes a bit too sweet and too vinegary. It will take about 6 weeks to mature but might in the end be even better than the chutney made with white wine vin. I’d love to hear back from you in 6 weeks time with your review if you have a moment.