Plum pickle/chutney/sauce

[BigJim]

Last Friday Tesco's had Tesco Value Plums, further reduced as reaching their sell by date.
So economical old me bought lots.
My mother in law used to make a Plum Pickle, we couldn't find her recipe, so made this one up from those we could find.
Our previous ones have gone well with all sorts of meats, we eat it with hot stews and casseroles (venison, pheasant) as well as cold meats, and it would probably go well with duck, as in duck with plum sauce. It is a sweetish sort of pickle if you make it that way!

RECIPE:
Plum Pickle/chutney/sauce
Ingredients:
3 ½ lbs plums, stones removed, sliced
½ lb onion
1 lb apples (after peeling and coring) (should be a variety that ‘falls’ well)
1 lb soft brown sugar
1 ½ pt vinegar
½ pkt dates, sliced thinly(optional)
2 heaped teaspoons ground ginger
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons salt
1 pt vinegar
zest of one orange (optional)
Tied in muslin:
1 dessertspoon cloves
½ oz whole allspice
2 small cinnamon sticks.

Method
Place all ingredients in a stainless preserving pan, bring to the boil, and simmer gently until plums and apples have fallen, and liquid has reached a thick consistency (will thicken more as it cools). This may take up to 2 hours on low heat, be careful it doesn't stick towards the end.
You could probablt taste at this stage and add more sugar if you wanted to.
Transfer to sterile jars and seal.

[Olan Giech]

Arr, funny you should say that.

My two oranges trees are in fruit at the moment, and so my house is slowly filling up with buckets of oranges waiting for the pickling.

Well, not pickling, I prefer chutney with cold ham to pickle, in italian pickle is a "salamoia" or "sotto aceto" (under vinegar), but there is no translation for chutney.
I could only find in the dictionary this: Chutney=Salsa Indiana a base di frutta e spezie.

Back to the kitchen, I saw recently on a BBC Prime program an Indian cook in the lakes who made Lime chutney, she said a secret for fruit chutney is not to use onions as they mask some of the finer flavours.

I'll be doing an Orange, Pineapple & Ginger chutney with no onions.

I've yet to post the Grape Jam methods and receipes I learnt this September. I found when doing the jam that I didn't need to add much sugar if I gently boiled the fruits in its juices skins and all for an hour before hand. By doing this with either juice of half a lemon or better still some green fruit, the acid breaks down the skins which contain the pectan needed for setting.
Obviously with a chutney setting like a jam is not the desired effect, just that I'm wary of swamping preserves with sugar. I like me grape jam a bit tangy for when it goes into a crossed tart which has a far amount of sugar in the pastry.
Age starting to show with all this concern for sugar content.

Coming soon... Olan Giech's Pastry Swirls (with pictures) :yay: