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).
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Last years wild plum jam won me a first in my local horticultural club summer show. Chutney class is in the spring show schedule so the wild plum version of this cutney will be entered into that.
Have only fairly recently gone on line, dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century so don’t know what I am doing in all honesty!!! However, have attempted this receipe for p.chutney and it would appear that is going to be a good one. Out of my ingreds, I managed to get four 1 pound jars and two half that size Will take a tasting in one month and let you know the results. This “on line” game is quite good, isn’t it.
Hi this looks ace. Thanks!
Am going to try it with greengages from my tree as greengage jam got a little boring after a year of trying to get through it all despite giving away a vast majority of it to family and friends!
Discovered this brilliant blog yesterday – this recipe is wonderful 😀
I have just come across this blog – brilliant! I am searching for a recipe for damson (or plum) gumbo and someone further up the comments promised to send one. Did that ever happen? If so I would be very grateful.
Many thanks – will now look at some of your other posts!
Did any of you hear a huge cheer from West Surrey today? I found a tree absolutly laden with what I think are Bullace, small yellow green plums. Slightly tart but sweet, if that makes sense! I picked as many as I could reach with my trusty hook handles umbrella and came home with 4lb. I am debating taking the stepladder back tomorrow for some more 🙂
I will cook them today to remove stones and then make another batch of chutney. It will be interesting to compare it with the one made from eating plums (victoria).
Made the Plum Chutney this weekend using my slowcooker. Fabulous, even before it has matured. I love it and need to make some more before all the plums disappear.
I decided to be cheap and bought distilled vinegar as all the wine vinegars were too pricy the week before payday and the flavour is still very smooth.
I agree with FN (what does that stand for by the way?) Having just made our annual batch it was certainly edible from completion with a very smooth sweet taste, although we’ll probably leave it a while to let the flavours diffuse. I think the plums may have been sweeter this year and we use good quality white wine vinegar (why not indulge yourself once in a while). By the way, I found it hard to believe the other Dave found white wine vinegar hard to get hold of; our local supermarket has buckets of the stuff, of all shapes and sizes.
Thank you for replying so promptly! It was organic vinegar- possibly not enough sugar? I think we’ll wait and see and hope for the best…….And try another batch as the smell while cooking was divine. Thanks again
Hi Fiona
So much depends on the type and sweetness of the plums, the quality of the vinegar ect. We usually can eat this immediately – perhaps our plums are sweeter.
All chutneys improve with age. Generally most people leave them for a month to mature at least. If we’d used malt vinegar I reckon the wait would be 6 months. The vinegar taste gradually disappears as the flavours develop.