Cottage Smallholder Plum Chutney or Damson Chutney
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chutney and Pickles, Jam Jelly and Preserves | 222 comments
a wicker basket full of wild plums
This chutney recipe works well with plums, wild plums or damsons. It does not need months to mature and keeps well
I had some spare time today so finally retrieved the stock pot from Danny, swooshed it out with bicarbonate of soda to get rid of the taint of clove chutney (see Tricks and Tips below) and found the plum chutney recipe from Anne Mary’s old cook book. This was going to be the base of our own Cottage Smallholder Chutney.
I had collected three pounds of windfall wild plums yesterday and simmered them last night for 20 minutes in 75 ml of white wine vinegar. This is Delia’s canny trick to avoid stoning fresh plums for chutney (use some of the vinegar that you are going to use for your brew). This morning, grabbing a handful at a time, it was easy to find the stones and remove them (our wild plum stones are tiny, barely a centimetre long).
At breakfast we studied Anne Mary’s recipe and decided how we would change it to create a plum chutney that we would be proud of. Danny had to go to London so pinpointed his essential ingredients for our chutney – balsamic vinegar and juniper berries. As I was the one who ruined the last “Let’s make our own” batch with too many cloves, I decided that our chutney was definitely going to work this time.
There was a clove shaped crisis of confidence. And consequently the alterations that I made today were incrementally smalll. This meant hours of tasting, comparisons and retasting, until I felt quite queasy from ingesting so much chutney. (At least a jar without lunch). It has now simmered (tiny bubbles barely breaking the surface) for five hours. When you draw a wooden spoon through the chutney, it is thick enough to see where you have been. It is finally done, and approved for release. We have made a great plum chutney, extra fruity and piquant.
Danny returned exhausted from London and sniffed the aroma as he walked into the kitchen. There was a long silence as he grabbed a spoon and rushed to the stock pot for a taste. His response was positive. Our recipe is below..
Our latest Plum and Tamarind Chutney recipe is here.
Tricks and Tips:
- How do I get rid of tainted smells in pots?
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 hot water. Rub the solution over all surfaces and leave for two minutes. Rinse well in cold water.
- How do I sterilise jars and lids?
The sterilising method that we use is simple. Just before making the jam, I quickly wash and rinse the jars and place them upside down in a cold oven. Set the temperature to 160c/140c for 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 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.
| Cottage Smallholder Plum Chutney or Damson Chutney |
- 3lbs/1350g wild plums/damsons/eating plums
- 1lb/450g of apples (cored but not skinned). Chopped fine. Cooking apples are best but eating apples would do at a pinch.
- 1 lb/450g onions chopped fine
- 10.5 ozs/300g dried apricots (chopped at least into eight)
- 7 ozs/200g dried raisins (chopped into four)
- Half lb-1lb/225g-450g of soft brown sugar, depending on how sweet your wild plums/damsons/eating plums are. We’d usehalf a lb of sugar for eating plums but used 1lb for this batch as we were using wild plums (these are very tart like damsons).
- 2 large cloves of garlic chopped fine
- Half tsp of cayenne pepper
- 2 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp of allspice powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1and a half pints/750 ml of white wine vinegar
- 1 small hot chilli
- 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar
- 5 juniper berries
- 10 black peppercorns
- Stone the plums and if big enough cut into slices.
- Chop the apples, onions, raisins and apricots.
- Place all ingredients in a large heavy bottomed saucepan and bring slowly to a gentle boil. Turn the heat down immediately and simmer very gently (tiny bubbles just breaking the surface on the lowest heat) for at least five hours until the mixture has broken down and thickens.
- Stir from time to time and more towards the end. If your simmering point is higher than ours, your chutney will be ready sooner. Take a peek every half hour or so. The chutney will thicken as it cools.
- When ready pour into sterilised jars and cover with plastic lined metal lids (how do I sterilise jars and lids? See Tips and Tricks above).
Leave a reply
Hi Claire
There is a good jam recipe here that works well for damsons https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=38
Hello Kate (UK)
Thanks for the advice. I didn’t know that you can tweak chutney months down the line.
Thank you so much for your reply that has really helped alot. I will still have a bucket full of damsons after this batch of chutney so I am hoping to try a Damson Jam recipe, do you have one at all? Many thanks again for your time.
Claire if you double the weight of the damsons then double everything else in the recipe to match it should be fine- you can always add more sugar towards the end of cooking if it seems too sour- but worth remembering that chutney takes time to mature and is always vinegary at first, after it has been left for a month or so the spice and sweetness comes out and it is ready to use.If it is too sharp even after a couple of months it can be re-heated and some more sugar added, then re-bottled in clean jars.Chutney is very amenable!
Hi I have so many damsons that I think I will double the ingredients, do you think this work out ok or will it become too vinegary?
Thanks for previous reply
Claire
Hi Rubyr
This is a great chutney and so easy to make. I could do with your children when I’m out foraging!
Hello Jane
I must try using the slow cooker next time. As you say it produces wonderful winter stews and casseroles.
Hi Ruby
I don’t know if there’s a master ratio of ingredients for chutney. Fresh ginger would work well. I just used store cupboard spices for this recipe so most people could make it easily.
Hi Claire
Weight of plums is before they’ve been stoned.
Great that you are enjoying the site.
Hi is the weight for the plums before or after they have been stoned?
By the way love your website, I have never made chutneys or jam before but having moved into a house that already has mature apple and damson trees, I am learning fast how to make use of these lovely free fruits.
Tried your apple chutney and that was a great success. Thanks
Well, we did it and it smells great! Used a bit of fresh Ginger as I love it. Was going to substitute some raisins for dates but got a bit scared and didn’t in the end. Is there a kind of master ratio for fresh fruit / apples & onions / dried fruit / vinegAr ? (or is it very easy to get it wrong?)
When it comes to chutney making, my favourite kitchen gear is…. the slow cooker! Mine is the Morphy-Richards 5-pint casserole with a hot-plate, and makes the most wonderful winter casseroles, oxtail stews and the like. Come mid-August, when the cherry plums (mirabelles) are ripe for just a very few days, my trusty slow-cooker comes into its own again as the best overnight simmer for chutney. You can retire to bed happy in the knowledge that when you will come down again the following morning your kitchen will be filled with the fragrance of perfectly simmered chutney, ready for bottling up.
Hiya, what an amazing blog entry! I am going to try your recipe today. Never made a chutney before, but whilst walking the other day stumbled across a plum tree (not sure what kind) so six year old son stood on my shoulders and dropped plums down to three year old who collected them up. Think I will have to call it ‘adventurers plum chutney’! Thank you!
Hello Maureen
Yed you can stew the plums and freeze them for later. I quite often do this with the fruit for fruit cheese.
Lucky you with your own secret garden!
Hi Cartrin
I’d thaw them first. Great that you are enjoying the site.
Hi Cathy
I put them in whole as I like to see whole spices in chutney. You can also use a twist of muslin as a spice bag or crush the spices. It’s entirely up to you.