Green Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large preserving pan or heavy stockpot (at least 5 litres)
• •Wooden spoon with a long handle
• •4 medium glass jars with vinegar-proof lids
• •Wide-mouth funnel for jarring
• •Ladle

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the tomatoes

   Tip the chopped green tomatoes into a large bowl and scatter the salt over them. Toss gently with your hands. Cover with a tea towel and leave them on the counter for a couple of hours, or overnight if it suits you. The salt draws out the bitter water that green tomatoes hold onto, and you'll see a surprising amount of liquid pool in the bottom of the bowl. That liquid is the harshness leaving. You don't want it.

   Don't skip this step. Unsalted green tomatoes give a chutney that tastes raw and bitter even after hours of simmering. Twenty minutes of patience now saves the whole pot.
2. 2

   Drain and rinse

   Tip the tomatoes into a colander and give them a brief rinse under cold water. Press gently with your hands to squeeze out the excess. They don't need to be bone dry, just relieved of the worst of the salty liquid.

3. 3

   Build the pot

   Find your largest, heaviest pan. A preserving pan if you have one, otherwise a stockpot will do. Tip in the drained tomatoes, the chopped onions, the apples, the sultanas, the sugar, and the vinegar. Add the mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, ground ginger, chilli flakes, garlic, and grated ginger. Stir it through. It will look like an unpromising mess at this stage. Trust the process.

4. 4

   Bring to a simmer

   Set the pan over a medium heat and bring everything slowly up to a gentle simmer, stirring now and then so the sugar dissolves and nothing catches on the bottom. The kitchen will start to smell sharp and vinegary at first, almost aggressive. That's normal. It mellows.

   Open a window. The vinegar fumes in the first half hour are fierce. By the time you're an hour in, the smell will have softened into something altogether more inviting.
5. 5

   Cook it down

   Lower the heat and let the chutney bubble away gently, uncovered, for about two hours. Stir it every fifteen minutes or so, more often as it thickens. You're looking for it to go from pale and watery to dark, glossy, and jammy. The colour shifts slowly: green, then khaki, then a deep, rich brown like wet bark. The smell shifts too. It stops smelling of vinegar and starts smelling of spice and fruit and something faintly Christmas.

   The classic test: drag a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pan. If the channel stays clear for a few seconds before the chutney closes back over it, you're done. If liquid floods straight back in, give it another twenty minutes.
6. 6

   Taste and season

   Take it off the heat. Let it cool for a minute, then taste it carefully on a clean spoon. It should be sweet, sharp, spiced, and savoury all at once, with no single note shouting over the others. If it tastes too sharp, a little more sugar. If it tastes flat, a pinch more salt. Trust your tongue. A chutney should make you want a piece of cheese and a bit of bread immediately.

7. 7

   Jar it up

   While the chutney is still warm, spoon it into clean, sterilised jars, pressing down gently to remove any air pockets. Seal with vinegar-proof lids. Label them with the date. Then put them somewhere cool and dark and forget about them for at least a month. Six weeks is better. The chutney needs that time to settle into itself.

   To sterilise jars: wash them in hot soapy water, rinse, then put them on a tray in a 140C oven for fifteen minutes. Lids go into a pan of just-boiled water for a few minutes. Hot chutney into hot jars.

Chef Tips

• •Use proper malt vinegar, not white wine vinegar or cider vinegar. Malt vinegar gives chutney its characteristic depth and dark colour. The other vinegars are fine in their place; this isn't their place.
• •Don't use a reactive pan. Aluminium and untreated cast iron will react with the vinegar and turn the chutney metallic and grey. Stainless steel or a properly enamelled preserving pan is what you want.
• •Resist the urge to rush the cooking down. Chutney that's been hurried tastes thin and wet, no matter how thick it looks. The slow reduction is where the flavours marry and the harshness leaves.
• •Eat it with strong, mature cheddar and a piece of good bread. Or with cold ham. Or stirred into a cheese sandwich before it goes under the grill. Or alongside a pork pie. The uses reveal themselves through the winter.

Advance Preparation

• •This chutney needs at least one month in a cool, dark cupboard before opening. Six weeks is better still. Freshly made chutney is harsh; aged chutney is balanced and deep.
• •Sealed jars keep for up to a year in a cool, dark place. Once opened, refrigerate and use within two months.
• •The salting of the tomatoes can be done the night before. Cover the bowl and leave on the counter overnight, then drain and proceed in the morning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 15g)