Sweet mango and apricot chutney recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chutney and Pickles | 16 comments
A mango for chutney
Making homemade mango chutney can be expensive unless you live in a country where mangoes grow, . We sell a lot of it on the gate side stand and it sells for 50% more than most of the other jars. I found some mangos in the market before Christmas – they were rock hard but gradually ripened on a sunny windowsill.
By adding apricots I padded out the mangoes and the result is a great fruity chutney with just a bit of kick. This version of the recipe needs much more vinegar so that the dried apricots can swell. It’s a tasty and much more economical version of my original mango chutney recipe.
This year I’m going to experiment more with the way we use our chutney. Rather than using it as a side dish I want to try and incorporate it into sauces and casseroles. All our chutney is largely fruit based so would be perfect with chops and sausages. And a little stirred into a sauce or soup could make them sing.
Has anyone out there any ideas for cooking with chutney that they’d like to share?
Photo by Agata Urbaniak
| Sweet mango and apricot chutney recipe |
- 500g (1 pound) of mango flesh chopped into 1 cm cubes (aprox 800g / 2 pounds of whole mangoes)
- 259g of dried apricots chopped into 1 cm cubes
- 1 litre of white wine vinegar
- 2 small unwaxed lemons, chopped lengthways, de-seeded and sliced thinly into quarter moons
- 3 small red bird’s eye chillies, chopped fine –seeds removed
- 15g of garlic, peeled and cut into short lengths
- 350g of Demerara sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- The seeds from eight cardamom pods
- Half a teaspoon of Fenugreek
- 1/2 teaspoon of Allspice seeds
- 1 large Star Anise
- <strong>To add just at the end:</strong>
- 1 teaspoon white mustard seed
- 1 teaspoon black mustard seed
- 1/2 teaspoon saffron soaked in a little warm water
- In a non reactive saucepan add the prepared mangoes, apricots, peppers, garlic, lemon slices and white wine vinegar.
- Simmer until soft (lid off). This will take about 30 minutes.
- When the fruit is soft, grind the spices (not the mustard seeds or saffron) in a pestle and mortar or bash them, enclosed in a clean kitchen towel with a wooden hammer or rolling pin.
- Add these spices (keep the mustard seed and saffron to add at the end), salt and sugar to the pot and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- Simmer gently for about an hour to let the chutney thicken. Stir from time to time.
- Add the mustard seeds and saffron, stir well and ladle carefully into hot sterilised pots and seal with plastic lined lids.
- Leave for a month or two to mature.
Tips and Tricks
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 boiling 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. 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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ooh, lovely! I’m definitely going to try this, because we enjoyed the original recipe but had to use expensive frozen mango, so I made just a couple of jars.
I stir chutney into devil sauce for spreading on torn-up pieces of left-over roast chicken and grilling (of course you could use it on raw meat for barbecuing too). Any chutney you like is fine for this.
Hiya Fiona –
I just adore mango chutney with a mixed platter of cold cheeses, meats & pickles – just the job. Or of course, stirred into a slow-cooked mutton curry…yum.
Any further updates regarding the CIEH/Environmental Health/Food Hygiene/Trading Standards minefields? I do hope that running a gateside stand is less of a legislative nightmare than we’ve had to endure…!!
Great ideas for using chutney here. I usually just put some on cheddar cheese or turkey sandwiches.
to make a 10 min curry stir fry thin strips of chicken breast with finely diced onion in a little veg oil until the chicken is cooked and slightly browned then add a large spoon of mango chutney and either curry powder or paste, fry for few seconds stirring then add double cream, (enough to coat the chicken and have enough of a sauce)and bring to a simmer. Instant tasty curry. To make vegetarian ‘sausage’rolls make the ‘sausage’ filling out of grated cheese fine white bread crumbs large dollop of mango chutney salt and pepper and a little beaten egg. Mix all the ingrediants to form a soft mixture roll out into long sausage lengths and use in pastry instead of sausage meat. Use really tangy mango chutney for this as it brings out the taste of the cheese wonderfully.
That’s funny, I was looking at ploughman’s picke recipes today ! I was questioning whether I needed to use malt vinegar or whether I could use cyder vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or white distilled vinegar instead ! All of which I have of course …
I was thinking a spoon of ploughman’s pickle would add something nice to a cottage pie, mixing nicely with the beef, worcestershire sauce and carrots mix.
On a similar vein, a tbsp of Mango chutney would probably be tasty with a moroccan style minced lamb that I sometimes make – minced lamb, garlic, onions, cumin, courgettes, chopped apricot, tbsp mango chutney, drop of water to make sauce – serve with rice – yum !
Try adding chutney to soups based on foods such as lentils or squash. I particularly love a spoonful of mango chutney in a bowl of soup made from butternut squash and curry/Indian spices.
I add a tablespoon or two of mango chutney to the curry paste and coconut milk when I’m making korma. The end result doesn’t taste of chutney, but it has more depth of flavour.
Synchronicity, or Great Minds Think Alike:
I stirred some chutney into a bowl of Bean with Bacon and Chorizo Sausage Stew/soup at lunch time today as a way of varying the flavour. (It started as stew, it is almost finished, and is more like soup now.)
Timely recipe for me as mangoes are readily available and cheap right now. My challenge is scaling the chutney recipes so that I don’t have enough to feed an army as MT is not a great fan and I can’t eat it all by myself!
Don’t you have a Lidl or an Aldi anywhere near you? They both regularly have special offers on various fruits. Mangoes were 49p each this week in Lidl. You can look online and see what they have each week so you wouldn’t need to go searching for them on the off chance. Avocados were 29p each. I made 1.5 litres of juice this morning containing 1 pineapple, 1 lime, 1 cucumber, 3 apples and an avocado for under £2.50. I dread to think how much that would have cost me in a trendy juice bar.