of plums and chutney
Despite my foreboding a few weeks ago, we have been able to harvest quite a few relatively blemish free plums .. and very juicy and delicious they are too!
We have enjoyed them lightly cooked, with a dollop of yoghurt and under a crunchy crumble topping.
Meanwhile, lovely daughter no.1 and her husband have a bumper crop of plums on the tree in their garden and brought a big bowlful round to us the other evening.
Wondering what to do with such bounty, I found a recipe for plum chutney in Nigel Slater's wonderful book: Tender vol 11
Making chutney is a relaxing affair. A bit of chopping and weighing and some occasional stirring, with none of the worry about whether setting point has been reached ..et voila, you have a lovely tangy chutney.
Although, maybe deciding to make it on one of the hottest afternoons of the year was not such a good idea!
Should you want to make Nigel's chutney, which is called hot, sweet plum chutney, the ingredients are as follows:
750g plums
350g onions
125g raisins
250g soft brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried chilli
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yellow mustard seeds
150ml cider vinegar
150ml malt vinegar
a cinnamon stick
Halve the plums and remove the stones. Chop the onions.
Place all the ingredients into a large stainless steel pan, bring to the boil and then simmer until a suitably jammy consistency is reached, which I found took about 1 1/2 hours.
Spoon into spanking clean jars.
Makes about enough to fill two jars.
And there you have it!
Nice for lunch with some ham from our local, friendly butcher.
Looks delicious, nothing nicer than preserving your own grown produce.
ReplyDeleteMy mind is definitely on chutney and I like the idea of the chilli in this.
ReplyDeleteLooks gorgeous, and that lunch of ham, lettuce and chutney is perfect.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely making this.
ReplyDeleteI've yet to pick plums but I do love this time of year.
ReplyDeleteI know that tastes as good as it looks!
ReplyDeleteI'm hankering after Nigel's 'Tender' books... still quite expensive so I'm reading Vol. 1 again courtesy of our local library...
ReplyDeleteChutney-making is one of those lovely relaxed activities which also makes you feel resourceful. Thanks for the recipe. I have my eye on a tree whose boughs sweep down over the pavement near our house. Year after year the ground is littered with unpicked yellow plums. I will remedy that this time around!
Sarah.
P.S. Ham is probably one of the best things you can buy from the butcher, isn't it? So very much nicer than the pre-packed stuff. There's no comparison.
Hello Sarah. I also love Nigel's 'Tender' books. It's not just his recipes and writing that I love, but the feel of them too - the paper and the font etc! True, they are quite expensive. I was lucky to get them as Christmas presents. Plums for free sounds great :) Do try the chutney if you get a chance.
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