This is a lovely colourful chutney with lots of flavour.
I make this in a slow cooker as you don’t have to stand stirring it and it doesn’t burn. Just give it a stir when passing every so often to make sure it’s moved around in the pan. If you prefer to do it on the stove top then that’s fine also.
This should make 5 x 500g jars.
A 1.5 kilo pumpkin will give you just over the amount you need. Any excess can be frozen.
300 g roasted pureed pumpkin
250 g diced pumpkin
1 cup cooked apples or pears
400 g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 cups onion
1 cup finely diced carrot
1 cup sultanas
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup cranberries
1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
200 g halved cherry tomatoes – roasted with a bit of oil and salt drizzled over
1 onion
1 bulb of garlic [about 10 cloves ]
2 small green chillis
These 3 need to be blitzed to a puree
500 ml white vinegar [white wine / cider or just plain distilled or a mix ]
1/4 cup lemon juice
300 g white sugar
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano or marjoram
1 tsp thyme
optional
2 Tbsp of Black Onion Seeds.
2 Tbsp of Cumin Seeds
Peel, core and chop enough pear or apple or a mix to give you 2 cups loosely packed and cook these with the lemon juice until you have a jam like consistency. You can use a barmix to help with this. You can put these into the slow cooker first to allow them to cook while you prepare everything else.
Cut the pumpkin in half around the middle slightly up from the midline. Scoop out the seeds and fibre from both halves.
Place the bottom half of the pumpkin cut side down in a roasting dish. Bake for about 30 mins. When the skin has started to go brown and it looks soft then remove from the oven. Use a large spatula to turn it over and scoop out the pulp. Doing it this way seems to make it easier to remove the pumpkin without getting bits of skin in it. Blitz with a barmix.
In the same oven put the 200 g of halved cherry tomatoes in a dish and drizzle with oil and a sprinkle of salt. These should take a little less time than the pumpkin. You want them cooked and starting to dry out.
Remove the skin from the other half of the pumpkin and cut into dice – just under a cm in size is about right.
Peel 2 carrots and cut into small dice – you want about 1 cup when done
Chop 4 onions – you want about 2 cups of chopped onion.
Peel and remove skin from a bulb of garlic and blitz with another onion and 2 green chillis [ you can add more if you want this hotter ]
Chop the apricots and the sun dried tomatoes – if they are in oil then that’s fine the oil won’t hurt the chutney at all
Place everything apart from the sugar into a slow cooker and cook on high for about 2 hours – you want everything cooked through before you add the sugar.
Add the sugar and continue to cook – once it’s back to bubbling again check the consistency.
If it’s too runny turn the lid through 90 degrees and allow it to reduce. Taste it – if it’s too sweet add a little more vinegar. This chutney has a lot of vegetables and fruits with high sugar content so it can turn out a bit too much like jam – taste it and adjust accordingly.
A general rule of thumb for chutney is 3kg vegetables to 1 litre vinegar and 500g sugar.
Using white sugar and white vinegars lets the colour of the fruit and veg really show through.
Steralise your jars and pour the chutney in and seal.
Once opened keep in the fridge
mortsmorsels 