Christmas Chutney

There, I’ve said it… I’ve dropped the C word! If there is any bit of a Grinch about you, you might want to avoid this little bit of the internet for the next few weeks. I have plenty more festive recipes coming up. I made this chutney and my Christmas cakes on the same weekend so the smells from the kitchen were amazing. Chutney is a great thing to have in your cupboard, particularly at this time of year when there are more cold meat leftovers. This is adapted from Nigella’s recipe from Nigella Christmas. Her recipe included dates and I’m not a fan. So I used dried apricots and cranberries instead and it worked perfectly. The recipe uses white wine vinegar but I didn’t have enough – very bad planning on my part. I used 250ml white wine vinegar and 250ml cider vinegar instead. I also used Granny Smith apples instead of cooking apples but then used less sugar as a result. If you are using frozen cranberries, allow them to defrost fully before using.

Play around with it and change to suit your own tastes. It really needs to be made around now to allow it to mature before using it. Store in a cool dry place for up to one year and then keep refrigerated for a month once opened.

This makes just over 2 litres of chutney. I plan to give some jars as gifts but you can easily halve the recipe.

 

Ingredients:

• 8 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped small
• medium onion, finely chopped
• 500g fresh cranberries
• 100g dried cranberries
• 125g dried apricots, chopped
• the zest, pulp and juice of an orange
• 350g caster sugar
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 500ml white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp salt

 

Method:

• Before you start have all your ingredients prepped as everything basically goes into the pot together. Put the apples, onion, both types of cranberries and the dried apricots into a large pan.
• Zest the orange into the pot and then juice it and add the juice and pulp to the pot.
• Add the sugar, ground cloves, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, vinegar and salt.
• Give everything a good stir over a high heat. Bring the mixture to the boil and then turn down the heat and let it simmer for an hour to 90 minutes until the fruit has all gone soft.
• While it is simmering, prepare your jars. To sterilise them I wash in warm soapy water and then put the jars on a try into an oven set at about 100c to dry them out. Be sure not to touch the inside of the jar after sterilising.
• Give the chutney a good stir and make sure all the fruit has become pulp. Spoon it into the warms jars.

 

Click here for a print friendly version – Christmas Chutney