Plum-go Chutney

Sorry if this is a boring photo, but you can't really sex up chutney.

It’s no secret that I love fruit straight from the tree at harvest time, but when I got back from the Scilly Isles and took the train home, our neighbour Ken gave us a BUCKET of plums and I began to feel pretty scared that they might go off if I didn’t deal with them quickly enough. The end result was that I embarked on a large-scale operation of chutney and cake making. We had crumbles coming out of our ears and compotes filling up the freezer, not to mention sauces and pickles taking up every empty jar.

After I’d made an old favourite (Nigella’s Chinese-style plum dipping sauce), I began to consider the other options that were open to me. Having looked up a few recipes online, I decided to make a few jars of mango chutney: with plums. Hence “Plum-go” chutney. Basically, all of the spices are the same as those that you’d find in a mango chutney and it does taste very similar. It’s a good idea if you’ve got a glut of fruit to use up, rather than shelling out for precious mangoes!

Unless you want to be over the stove for more than a few hours, I’d suggest adding a bit of pectin (you can buy it powdered), just because for me, the plums were still a bit sloppy. And add brown sugar to taste as you go along, in case you like your chutney sweet or sour.

Ingredients:

1kg plums, stoned and quartered

250-300g soft brown sugar, depending on taste

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

4 cardamon pods

1 tsp paprika or cayenne pepper

1 tsp turmeric

50g fresh root ginger, grated/chopped

½ tsp ground cloves

250ml white wine vinegar

3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 onion, diced finely.

Method:

1)      Dry roast the cumin and coriander seeds with the cardamom pods. Crush lightly with a pestle and mortar before returning to the pan.

2)      Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan along with the spices and bring to a boil.

3)      Reduce the heat and boil for 2-3 hours until you have a thick syrupy mixture. At this point, check the sweetness. I added about another cup of sugar, as I like my mango chutney sweet. I also added a few teaspoonfuls of pectin, as plums give out a lot of liquid and the sauce wasn’t thickening as much as it should have been. With the pectin added, I turned the pan up to a rough boil until I got the right consistency.

4)      Pour into sterilised jars and keep well hidden, mainly in anticipation of that turkey curry that’ll need sprucing up!