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.
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Made my first batch of chutney yesterday! Quite sharp for my taste (Bramley apples used)so would add a little more sugar and less vinegar next time. Think the jars I’ve used are too big though and was wondering if I can re-jar into smaller ones or would that ruin the batch? Advice please! Thanks
I am SO excited!
We inherited a big old apple tree when we moved house six months ago and wanted to make use of our windfalls. I was thrilled to find your site and thanks to all the feedback here I decided to be brave. So my first ever chutney is a combination of lots of ideas I’ve found here.
I am making a Xmas chutney to give to family and friends, so I have used dates and cranberries in amongst the fruit and as I don’t have a heavy bottomed pan, I am using my slow cooker.
The whole family have helped to make this chutney and it looks good so far.
Thanks to everyone on this site for all the help and advice it’s been great to read and I’m really looking forward to enjoying the results.
Hi,
Knocked up a batch of this last night in my slow cooker. Took ages! 8 hours in total… but then i used coxs apples, cored and quartered as i’m too lazy to peel or chop!
Have another round of apples to use and might reduce the sugar as when tasting it is very very sweet! Also thinking i might blitz the apple in the food processer first and reduce the vinegar.
Result was 8 “bonne maman” jars worth and a little left over for a (after) midnight snack.
Plums next…
Hi,
Just made a batch of this with the last of my apples (not sure what type). I did half quantities (apart from the chilli – I like chilli!), but added approx 100 ml water as well as the mixture was looking a little dry to begin with. Oh, and used cider vinegar. Took 3 hours on gentle heat to be ready to pot. I reckon I got 3 lbs worth. Tried the left overs with some good cheddar today – the results are more than adequate 🙂 I reckon it’ll be awesome by Christmas. Many thanks!
Am looking at taking a more DIY approach to Christmas this year and before the remaining cookers fall from our tree have come across your chutney recipe. As I’m hoping to use some as gifts in hampers, what shelf life does this recipe have?
Hello Heidi
At least a year. Chutneys improve with age – we have some vintage ones in our larder of 5 years old and very good they are too 🙂
I have just made my very first batch of apple chutney using your recipe.I am absolutely delighted with the results,I don,t think I will ever buy shop bought chutney again.I just hope I have the willpower to let it mature as it tastes so good already.next on the agenda is plum chutney and piccalilli.As you can see I,ve been bitten by the preserving bug.I have also made apple and blackberry jam plum jam and greengage jam and as fast as i,m making it the family are raiding it .
Well, I’ve just created this wonderful sounding recipe. Peeling and then chopping up 1.5kg of apples was ‘fun’ 🙂
The whole flat now smells like Christmas, so it’s win-win as far as I’m concerned!
http://twitpic.com/2q123s
I made the chutney earler in the week, its all in bottles and jars, smells great although you can still smell the vinegar so hope that that will fade as it matures. Am I right in thinking it will be OK to use after about a month? It looks amazing, like Branston Pickle really! I used some sugar I have had in the cupboard a while a mixture of light and dark muscavado (all still in date). Can’t wait to taste it!
Thanks so much, the site is great, apple jelly next!
Hi There. Love your website. I made your blackberry and apple jam last night but used 1/2 pears and 1/2 apples. It tasted nice before I bottled 🙂 Could you please tell me how long the jams last for if unopened and also, is it possible to omit the sultana’s from the apple chutney recipe above? I hate sultana’s or raisins in chutney…
Thank you!
Stephi
Hi Stephi
The jam should last about a year unopened.
You can substitute something else for the sultanas – equal in weight. More apples, dates, fineley sliced lemons or oranges.
Thanks, I will get some white wine vinegar instead then and save the pickling vinegar for something else!