This recipe was first written in December last year after a meeting of the great U3A cookery group – we have such fun!

Cookery Group

We had the last U3A cookery group meeting of 2017 yesterday afternoon. Half a dozen people came and the noise level was pretty extreme! We have gone through all my favourite recipes, so now I find 3 recipes, sometimes 4, for us all to make and it is as much of an exploration for me as it is for them.

This time, we made some lovely spiced nuts, a hummus and roasted vegetable pie and some cranberry chutney. All three things were delightful, very successful, and will def be on my repeat list.

Today, I will be showing you what we did for the chutney.

This cranberry, orange and ginger chutney which I found in Delicious magazine, would make a lovely addition to a gift hamper. I am looking forward to  a doorstep turkey sandwich with a good dollop of chutney in it, or a couple of oaty bannocks, salty, mature cheddar and a little of this on the side.

Cranberry, orange and ginger chutney

5cm piece fresh ginger, sliced, 50p/125g, 10p
A cinnamon stick, 79p/12g, 20p
3 whole cloves, 79p/31g, 5p
500g fresh cranberries, £1.50/300g, £2.50
500g Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped, £1.20/4, 60p
120g dried cranberries, £1/100g
300g granulated sugar, 64p/kg, 19p
Grated zest and juice of an orange, 30p
400ml white wine vinegar, 75p/350ml

Priced at Asda, 5Dec17. Total price £5.69, makes 4 and a half jars, so £1.26 a jar

If you use the whole spices, you will need to be able to see them to remove them, so tie them in a muslin square or an infuser.

I used an ice cube of ginger from a big jar that I’d frozen using an ice cube tray, this would be a much cheaper way to get your ginger. Also, I didn’t have any whole cloves, so I used half a teaspoon of ground cloves.

The bottle of wine vinegar I bought was 350ml, but I just used that and didn’t top it up with any more, and that’s how I’ve priced it.

I’ve also priced it using just the one pack of the dried cranberries

I’ve now made this a second time and I just took out the pips and hard parts of the apple, I didn’t peel it, and I chopped the orange rather than squeeze it and it all worked fine

Put everything in a thick based saucepan. Heat it gently until the sugar has dissolved. Now simmer, with the lid off, for about half an hour. You need to simmer it so that the base of the saucepan shows for a second or two when a wooden spoon is drawn across it.

Whilst still extremely hot, pot up into 3 sterilised jars. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to cool. Once cold, put a circle of waxed paper on the top, and the lid on. If it is metal, protect with a circle of waxed paper, otherwise, use cellophane and rubber bands.  Leave for a month for full maturity of flavour, but it’s wonderful fresh, eaten straight away.

A beautiful fresh chutney that can be eaten straight away, or left to mature for a month Click To Tweet

Verdict

Delicious! Although chutneys need to be matured before use, and it is recommended that this one is matured for a month, it is absolutely lovely right away. Because it has a sweet and sour type taste, it can actually, and surprisingly for a chutney, be used with sweet things too. Mike tried some with thick Greek yogurt, and I had a little blob with a banana and some grapes. It went really well. It may mature of course with a more savoury flavour, we shall see.

Variations

You don’t have to make this in cranberry season. Cranberries freeze beautifully. I just pop them in there in their plastic carton.

Add more sugar if you want it. Taste when nearly ready and add another 50g of sugar at a time until it is as you like it.

You could chop the flesh of the orange and add it like that instead of as juice.

If you like a lot of ginger, up the amount to as much as you like.