GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

A friend ours recently had a glut of unripened tomatoes and, luckily for us, gave us a bagful. Now a good few years ago i made ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ a small batch of green tomato chutney and upon receiving this bag full of said fruits i was ordered to make another batch ‘pronto’. So after a bit of delving through the archives, i,m a bit sad really as i have a recipe scrapbook, i finally found the original recipe for said chutney. Today has been my day off from work so i set about making, and photographing the processes off, this chutney. I hope it all makes sense.

INGREDIENTS

• 2LBS green tomatoes
• 8oz chopped onions
• 8oz chopped apples
• 4oz sultanas
• 8oz brown sugar
• 10floz malt vinegar
• 1/2tsp mustard powder
• 1/4tsp cayenne pepper
• 1tsp salt

• First thing you need to do is peel the tomatoes. This is best done by soaking them in boiling water for a minute or so then taking them out and once cooled you can begin to peel the skin off. Having said this i found it easier to just skin them carefully with a very sharp knife. Once skinned roughly chop them into small cubes.
• Chop the onion into roughly the same size as the tomatoes and do the same with the apple, i,ve used cooking apples.
• Chuck the tomatoes, apple, onions and half the vinegar into a saucepan and cook gently until they are all soft, whilst stirring the mixture regularly.
• Once soft add the rest of the vinegar, the sultanas, brown sugar, mustard powder, cayenne pepper and salt and allow to gently simmer for 15-20 minutes until the mixture has slightly thickened and has turned a light brown colour. Regularly stir so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of your pan.
• Once your happy with the colour and consistency pot up in your sterilised jars whilst still hot.

I hope you give this recipe a try as it really is a ‘goodun’, sweet and tangy with a very slight warmth to it. Definitely a condiment to be used with a nice cheese and cold meats platter.