Task 29: Make chutney

After the failure of the carrot cake – “just about edible”, said an honest friend – I decided it was time to venture into the kitchen again and see if I could do better.  Chutney sounded appealing and could be useful with any leftover turkey or sausages.  Armed with a WI recipe supplied by my friend Pauline, I immediately hit a problem.  The cooking apples had to be cored and chopped, but should they be peeled as well?  It didn’t say (possibly the WI regard it as too obvious to mention, though I think they should consider culinary numpties like me before going to print).  Happily Google supplied the answer, which was an unsurprising yes.

Then I had to find some jars, which had to be cleaned, sterilised and vinegar-proof.  I’d forgotten that my suitable ones were already full of prunes in Armagnac, marinating ready for the New Year’s Eve dinner party with neighbours, and since we’ve switched from toast and marmalade to porridge for breakfast, we get through very few jars in a year.  The exception is the relatively tall, thin type that holds olives for our martinis, but even then I could find only one.  Time to root through the fridge and cupboards to see what was past its use-by date.  The result was rather embarrassing, including a half-empty jar of sun-dried tomatoes that were turning fluffy and black.  Yuk. 

Anyway, I eventually found enough and made sure they were thoroughly soaked, scrubbed and sterilised in the oven.  The preserving pan was wedged in the back of a cupboard, never having been used in over 30 years.  It originally belonged to my husband Peter’s first mother-in-law, who could probably have made chutney in her sleep.  I had kept it as I had long entertained a vision of bustling creativity in the kitchen, conserving, preserving and generally steering just clear of the earth mother image.  Now was my chance.

The recipe looked straightforward, although the initial appearance of the assembled ingredients wasn’t encouraging:

I’m not sure what those speckly bits are, but they look worse in the other photo I took.  The chunks of apple also seemed rather large.  Should I have chopped them more finely?  Again, the WI hadn’t offered any guidance on this.

After an hour and a half of simmering, stirring and anxiously peering into the pan, the work in progress was looking frankly unappetising:

That greyish scum, top right, was especially disturbing. 

Having got so far, I was determined to finish the task and there was always the possibility it was actually meant to look like that.  At least the apple wasn’t now so prominent and the speckles had disappeared into the general bubbling mass.

Finally, after two hours it was time to pour the chutney into the hot jars.  A funnel would have been useful.  In the end Peter held the pan at an angle while I laboriously used a small spoon to guide the contents into the jars.  So as not to waste any and also to make sure there was no excess air left inside, I slightly overfilled each one.  Putting the lids on was a messy business, with sticky chutney sliding down the side.  The end result did look quite promising, though:

Looking at the storage instructions, I noted that chutney has to be left for 2-3 months before it’s ready to eat.  So much for my plans to have it with the Christmas leftovers.  It will be Easter before I know whether it’s been a success or not – always assuming it doesn’t explode in the dark cupboard in the garage where it’s now maturing.  My father’s mother once destroyed an entire stone larder when the ginger beer she was brewing became a little too lively.  Maybe my lack of skill in the kitchen is genetic?

I’ll report back after Easter on the outcome – or earlier in the event of detonation.