Plum Gooden Chutney

This 'Plum Gooden' Chutney is 'absolutely wonderful' and a change from the usual cranberry preserve that dominates Christmas meals. It goes great with pate, with your Christmas roast bird, on a boxing day morning cold turkey and stuffing sandwich, as a topping to melted camembert or a crottin of goats cheese in a tart or galette, with cooked cold ham, meat terrines, quiche.....and it's particularly tasty with smoked salmon or with mackerel....my personal favourite!

You might think that now the summer is over that fresh, ripe plums may be hard to come by, home grown ones maybe yes, unless you grew your own then froze them, but now that summer has reached the southern hemisphere and the sun has returned to the equator, fruits from those warmer countries is now landing on our shores. For this years batch of chutney I found it very easy to get plums and at the ready price of less than 2 euros a kilo!

The chutney is relatively easy to make if you don't mind a bit of chopping at first and don't mind
being patient while it is cooking.
Choose good quality ingredients....ripe  but still firm plums, plump sultanas and fresh onions and apples, and a good quality red wine vinegar.
Once stored in jars in a cool larder, your chutney will keep unopened for months, but once open it still keeps extremely well in the refrigerator for a good week or more.
How many jars you can fill from the recipe depends on the jars used, but I can get about 8 - 10  228ml jars from a batch


You will need......

400 g red onion
250g sultanas
1.3kg nicely ripe, ruby red plums
400g bramley apples
450g light brown sugar
300mls red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
a little water

you will also need a really deep, heavy saucepan with a tight fitting lid, your pot should hold at least 4 litres and preferably be stainless steel, using aluminium is not a good idea due to the acid in the vinegar. A jam / preserving cauldron would be good to use.

Have your sterilised jars, and their lids, warm from either the dishwasher or the oven, ready to pour the hot chutney into.

Method........

• pick through the sultanas and remove any sticks 
• peel and finely dice the onions and place in the pot with the sultanas and about 100mls of water
• gently heat the pot until the water starts to steam then cover with the lid and let the onions and sultanas steam until almost soft
• wash the plums removing any leaves or stalks, cut each plum in half, remove the stone, then cut into smaller pieces, usually quarters
• add the plums to the pot and allow them to steam gently with the lid on while you prepare the apples
• wash, peel, core, quarter and cut the apples into chunky pieces, give them another rinse in cold water, add them to the pot then.......
• straight away, add the sugar, red wine vinegar and salt, mix everything together well 
• bring to the boil then turn the heat down and allow the chutney to cook until the apples have burst and the plums are soft
• turn the heat up a little, we want a fast simmer now.......

As you continue cooking, the juices will begin to reduce and become syrupy as the fruits break down and you begin to get that chutney consistency, keep the chutney moving as we don't want the sugars to stick and burn to the bottom of the pot

When the chutney has finished cooking, turn off the heat and move aside to cool for around 5 minutes.
Pour the still hot chutney into your sterilised and warmed jars, put the lids on immediately. Now up end the jars and stand on their lid ends for 15 minutes the turn and stand them upright. Allow them to cool fully overnight then label, date and package them ready for gifting. You could make, or buy little christmas stockings or gift bags to present them in, use christmassy labels or decorate with ribbons, greenery or shiny bits and pieces.

Present your gifts in cute christmas bags or even little stockings or simply adorn the jar with some ribbon and a handwritten gift tag

Did you have a go at making this recipe? then I'd love to hear about it, feel free to drop a comment below.

Lesley x