Green Tomato Chutney

Every year it's the same. The first proper cold snap arrives in October, the tomato plants slump in the garden, and there's a bowlful of stubbornly green fruit sitting on the kitchen counter that was never going to ripen. You can leave them on a sunny windowsill and hope, but most of them won't get there. So you make chutney.

This is one of the few recipes in the notebook that I make almost exactly the same way every year. Green tomatoes, onions, apples, sultanas, vinegar, sugar, a handful of warm spices. The pan goes on after lunch and the kitchen smells of vinegar for the first hour, which is unpleasant in a way you have to trust. By the second hour, it has turned into something altogether different: dark and glossy and faintly Christmassy, smelling of spice and fruit and the kind of patience that makes winter eating possible.

The hardest part is leaving it alone. A freshly made chutney is harsh and one-noted. Give it a month in the cupboard, longer if you can stand it, and the flavours soften and marry into something quietly splendid. It will sit on a piece of strong cheddar like it was born for the job. It will make a cold ham sandwich into something worth sitting down for. It will be there at Christmas when you need it.

We're only making chutney. But chutney made now is a small letter to your future self, posted into a jar and read again in January when the garden has nothing to offer and the days are short. There are few better feelings than reaching into the cupboard for something you made months ago and finding it ready.