Very Bored Cook

I had intended to make a glut of this stuff about 2 months ago with all the tomatoes I was definitely going to have at the end of the summer. Then my tomatoes, all 13 plants got blight and swiftly died one after the other… I am not afraid to say that there was a serious sense of humour failure under this roof. Not only because they had dies after all the love and attention that I had paid them, but also because I had been really looking forward to making tomato chutney. I first tried homemade stuff at a friend’s wedding, we each got a teeny little jar of tomato chutney as a favour and it was gorgeous – this was about 2 years ago – I’ve been wanting to make it since then.

I’ve stuck quite close to a GoodFood recipe adding a few extra bits to give it a bit of welly, but it goes simply like this.

Makes 4 jars.

4 jam jars
4 wax circles (or 4 circles cut out of greaseproof paper)
1kg Vine tomatoes, get the ping-pong ball size ones
4 medium red onions
1 whole red chilli (seeds or not – it’s up to you)
4-8cm fresh ginger
8 cardamom seeds
5 cloves of garlic
150ml red wine vinegar
200g Brown sugar
100ml Guinness or any other dark stout/ale
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (only if you’ve got it)
1/2 tsp cumin
Juice of 1 lemon

• Roughly chop the onions and tomatoes

     

• Finely chop the garlic and chilli
• Place ALL the ingredients into a large pan and bring to a simmer

    

• Simmer for 1 hour on a low-medium heat, lid on

    

• Sterilise your jars – this will make about 4 jars – you can do this either by putting them into a hot oven, or leaving them in kettle hot water for about 15 minutes
• After an hour turn the heat up and boil more vigorously, lid off
• Taste (be careful it will obviously be very hot) and add more of anything that you think it needs – possibly more Guinness – so don’t drink all the remaining can before you reach this point!
• Heat off and leave to cool for about 15 minutes
• Ladle the chutney into the jars, clear any mess around the necks (there was a lot for me to clear up)
• Place the wax circles on top of the chutney and put the lids on
• This will apparently last for 6 weeks, but given how much we love chutney in this house I can’t see that happening!

This will be great for putting in sandwiches as well as serving with a cheeseboard (which of course we all do every evening…)
It’s not a short recipe but it’s so easy and is so worth it.