A Glut Worth Celebrating

By late September, the garden has stopped being polite about it. The Bramley is dropping fruit faster than you can gather it, the greenhouse is a riot of green tomatoes that will never ripen before the first frost, and the onion crop is hanging in the shed in plaits you have nowhere left to put. This is the moment British cooks have always understood: a glut is not a problem, it is a larder waiting to happen.

Chutney is the most forgiving thing you can make with a surplus. It takes the sharp, the underripe and the slightly bruised, and turns them into something spiced, dark and deeply savoury that will sit quietly in a cupboard for a year and then, on a cold January evening, make a plain piece of Cheddar taste like an occasion.

Kit, Jars and the Business of Sterilising

You need less equipment than you think. A wide, heavy-based pan is the one thing worth insisting on — jam pans and preserving pans are ideal, but a large stockpot works perfectly well. A long wooden spoon, a jam funnel if you have one, and a jug for ladling.

Jars matter more than pans. Wash them in hot soapy water, rinse, then sterilise by placing them upside down in a low oven at 140°C for fifteen minutes. Boil the lids for ten minutes and leave them to dry on a clean tea towel. Fill the jars while they are still hot — a cold jar can crack, and a hot jar filled with hot chutney is far less likely to grow mould.

• Use jars with vinegar-proof lids, or slip a disc of greaseproof paper under a metal one.
• Never use jars that have held anything strongly savoury or oily.
• Chutney shrinks as it cooks, so a big panful makes a surprisingly modest shelf of jars.

The Formula That Never Fails

Once you know the proportions, you can make chutney out of almost anything. For every 1kg of prepared fruit or vegetables, use 300–350g of sugar, 400–500ml of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Brown or white sugar both work; muscovado gives a darker, treaclier result. Cider, malt and distilled vinegars are all fine — malt is the traditional, robust choice, cider the gentler one.

Spices are where you make it yours: mustard seeds, ginger, allspice, cloves, black pepper, a little cayenne, a bay leaf or two. Toast whole spices briefly in the dry pan first and the difference is remarkable. Add the sugar last, once the vegetables have begun to soften, and stir until it has dissolved completely.

Simmer gently and uncovered, stirring often, for one to two hours. It is ready when you can draw a wooden spoon across the base of the pan and the chutney leaves a clear channel that fills only slowly. Remember it thickens further as it cools, so stop while it is still slightly looser than you want it.

Apple and Onion Chutney

This is the great all-rounder, and the one to make if you only make one.

• 1kg Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 500g onions, finely chopped
• 250g sultanas or raisins
• 350g light muscovado sugar
• 500ml cider vinegar
• 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp ground allspice, a pinch of cayenne

Soften the onions in a tablespoon of oil over a low heat for ten minutes without colouring them. Add the apples, sultanas, vinegar, salt and spices, bring to a simmer, then cook for twenty minutes. Stir in the sugar and continue gently for another hour to ninety minutes, stirring regularly, until thick and glossy. Pot into hot jars, seal, and label.

Green Tomato Chutney

The answer to every unripened tomato on the vine.

• 1.5kg green tomatoes, sliced
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 cooking apples, peeled and chopped
• 300g demerara sugar
• 450ml malt vinegar
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp chilli flakes, 1 tsp salt

Everything goes in the pan together except the sugar. Simmer for thirty minutes, then add the sugar, dissolve it and cook for a further hour or more until the spoon leaves its channel. Green tomato chutney is sharper than the apple version and excellent with cold meats and strong cheese.

Potting, Maturing and the Winter Cheese Board

Fill each jar to within a centimetre of the rim, run a knife around the inside to release trapped air, wipe the rims and seal immediately. Leave to cool undisturbed overnight, then label with the date and the variety.

Now the important part: store the jars in a cool, dark cupboard and leave them alone for at least four to eight weeks. Chutney eaten straight from the pan tastes raw and vinegary; given time, the vinegar mellows, the sugar rounds out and the spices marry into something far greater than the sum of its parts. Unopened jars will keep for a year or more. Once opened, keep them in the fridge.

Come winter, put out a board with a wedge of mature Cheddar, a slab of Wensleydale, a little Stilton, cold roast pork or a pork pie, oatcakes and a pot of your own chutney. That is the whole point of the autumn glut — not preserving for its own sake, but knowing that the coldest, greyest evening of the year already has its best dish waiting in the cupboard.