Waste Not Want Not Green Tomato Chutney

It always surprises me how many green tomatoes people end up with at the end of the season, especially in England. But it doesn’t always have to be a waste. Now the first thing that springs to mind when people mention green tomatoes is the infamous green tomato chutney. It just so happens that this week, Andy’s Dad has brought up the subject of a rather large crop of unripe tomatoes sitting in his greenhouse that he doesn’t know what to do with.

Having built up a bit of a reputation across our families for our chutney and jamming skills, we’ve offered to transform his sorry looking stash into a green marvel. Here is our recipe for Waste Not Want Not Green Tomato Chutney for your pleasure and ours:

1000g green tomatoes, chopped into bite sized chunks
250g peeled Russet apples, chopped into bite sized chunks
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 tsp of salt
1 big hot red chilli, finely chopped
50g chopped apricots
50g sultanas
1/2 inch piece of ginger, grated finely
1 garlic clove
300g light muscovado sugar
400ml white wine vinegar
2 tsp mustard seeds, fried gently in a bare pan, then smashed in a pestle and mortar
1 piece of cinnamon bark

Add all the ingredients to the pot (all the best recipes have those words in them) and heat until soft and gooey. Make sure you don’t keep the chutney on too high a setting as it will catch to the bottom of the pan, even if you have a non stick one and this will cause tainting. You’ll know it is ready when you can draw the spoon or spatula across the bottom of the pan and it leaves a line behind for a few seconds before the chutney fills it. Make sure you remove the cinnamon bark before filling the jars.

There are a number of methods of jar sterilisation floating about, but our favourite is to wash the jars and lids in really hot, soapy water and drying them in the oven at 110oC / 225oF / ¼ Gas Mark (Andy questioned my logic here, but yes, ¼ gas marks do exist) for about 10 minutes.

We hope this will help you to sort out at least some of your green tomato worries!