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
1. Can you adapt this recipe to include some pears – or would they make it too mushy?
2. I have dessert apples I desperately need to use up and would quite like a sweet chutney similar to say mango chutney to go with curries etc.
Would this recipe be suitable.
Thanks as always for such a great blog and recipes.
hi i was wondering if you could explain the taste of apple chutney in as many keys words as you can.
i’m doing an assignment on apple chutney but never found out what it tasted like.
it’s been impossible finding an answer on the internet so i was hoping you can help me as soon as possible because the deadline of my assignment is in a few days and i’m starting to panick
Thanks in advance:)
Hi, here’s a question. When I used your chutney recipe last month I only had enough at the end to fill half a small jar. I have still kept it hoping to use it for tasting when our church has its Christmas Fair in a month. I’m afraid, however, that the jar’s not being completely filled up may cause it to spoil. Do you think it will be safe to eat?
Thank you for this recipe. I just made the chutney, it smells great. Taste is good too – a little vinegary but I guess that will mellow as it matures?
Only thing is, I only cooked it for about 2 and a half hours because it thickened up pretty quickly. I think its because I couldn’t simmer it low enough. Do you think it will still be ok?
I intend to buy a heat diffuser before I make more.
Have just made this and tasted it a superb recipe – so pleased with the result – I wanted a rich, fruity, spicy chutney and that is just what I have – thanks so much for posting this, to everyone for their comments, and to you for your replies – I made it in the slow cooker and it was great!
I have loads of old jars, but no lids! I am going to make some chutney, does anyone have any ideas about what I can use for lids instead? Or should I just go out and buy some jars and lids?
Thanks!
Hi Gill
Lakeland sell lids
Have made several batches of this gorgeous chutney since I discovered the recipe a couple of years ago. Busy stranining quinces at the moment to make jelly and searching your site to see what else I can make from my tons of apples!
Hi, I plan to try making chutney for the first time using the above apple chutney recipe. Should the chili pepper be fresh, and would a green “sweet” one be OK, as that’s all I could find here in northern Italy now? Also, should I chop it up? Thanks for the fabulous website.
Hi Charlotte
The chili needs to be hot – can be fresh or dried. I’d use the green sweet one chopped and then taste the chutney adding dried chili flaakes if necessary.
Hi
Thanks for a great recipe. I made apple chutney a couple of weeks back having been given some cooking apples and it turned out very well. This week I’ve been given some eating apples so decided to make them into chutney too. I used cider vinegar and left out the allspice as I didn’t have any and it seems to have turned out fine. It’s cooling in jars now. For those people who’ve mentioned that their chutney was bitter, my husband sampled the chutney after it had been cooking for 4 hours on number 2 setting on the electric hob and commented that it had a bitter aftertaste. I cooked it for a further 3 hours on number 1 and the bitterness has gone.
This is a lovely recipe. I used it to make wedding favours for my friend’s wedding – 120 jars worth, plus extra for the cheese course! It went down very well, so thank you for sharing.