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
Good Morning Fiona, Enjoyed looking through your site.
I have a lot of young apples falling with the high winds we have had here in Ireland over the past couple of months.
In the fall I am pestered by Crows, so have decided to use the apples when and where available.
Can I use these early fallen apples to make chutney instead of wasting them? Appreciate your comments.
David
Hi David
I think that you could use the little apples for chutney. As they are higher in pectin than the mature apples a lot of people use them for making homemade pectin to use in jams that have a problem setting.
Would be really interested to see how the chutney turns out.
Hi, I am having trouble explaing a surplus of Adnams bitter to my husband…
Also, I have been given a good supply of Adnams Southwold bitter recently, is there an effective chutney recipe that you could recommend using beer as an ingrediant perhaps?
I love this chutney, I am coming to the end of my final jar and I have to say after 2 years matured it is knockout stuff.
Thanks for sharing Fiona and this site is brilliant for tips from everybody. I am now daring to make my second ever chutney but your tips on here give me confidence to pull it off!
I want to thank you again for this fabulous recipe. I ended up cooking it at least 6 hours, but it was worth the effort! By far the best chutney among all those sold at our 2011 Christmas Fair! I’ll surely make it again come September!
Great chutney.. I tweaked it slightly and used cider vinegar plus a small bottle of cider as I was trying to create something similar to one we bought in Devon. Very very nice and I’ve got friends/colleagues constantly asking when the next batch will be done!
@ Frances
I found this very short thread about chutney without vinegar for you.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2702709
People are pretty much saying that the vinegar in chutney is what preserves it so it is an essential ingredient, but you could look at making onion marmalade, salsas, tomato jams and relish etc. instead?
And there are many different types of vinegar, is it just one type that you dislike because you could try cider vinegar?
Hi Gill
That’s what I thought too. White wine vinegar is very mild.
Do you have any recipe for a chutney without vinegar, which I can’t stand? Thanks
Hello
I was given some cooking apples back in October of last year, and found your recipe online which I followed, did however leave out the chilli, it made 4 large jars which I then put in the cupboard and left. I gave a jar to my parents over christmas a few days later they phoned to say it was awesome and went exceptionally well with cheese. It was the first time I have ever made anything like this, I have only 1 jar left, I am tickled pink and will be making it again and again. Thank you
I ate some of mine straight away and it was scrummy! Some I left for a month and some I’ve left for longer. No rules here, as long as your jars are sterile for those you’re keeping!