Cherry Chutney
This is the 7th year I’ve made this chutney and I’m absolutely obsessed with it. I ration it out and give Tim my scary eyes when I see him spooning it onto his plate! I originally made this as I bought a kilo of cherries and had no idea what to do with them all. Now I double or triple the recipe. It’s sweet, sticky and has just the right about of Christmas spice. It will go well with Turkey or a delicious glazed Ham. It also makes a lovely gift. A word of warning – pitting cherries might give you a strained hand like I got and you get covered from head to toe in cherry juice, I had it in my hair, over my neck – everywhere, I looked like I had been attacked! I often skip the mess of pitting and use pitted frozen cherries which work jut as well. Anywho, this is well worth the effort. Do not used canned cherries, I’ll hunt you down if you do. Enjoy this special little gem and have a wonderful Christmas x
Ingredients (MAKES 3 X 300G JARS)
1 kilo cherries, pitted
2 brown onions, finely sliced
1 cup brown or coconut sugar
1 cup water
1 cup raw cider vinegar
1 cup raisins or currants
¼ cup candied ginger, finely chopped or 2 tbsp fresh ginger grated
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
3 whole cloves
A few grates of whole nutmeg
1 tsp of salt
Combine everything in saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium heat.
Turn the heat down, cover, and simmer gently for about an hour (better yet, leave it in a slow cooker for 8 hours!).
Remove cover and continue to simmer until mixture is thick and gloppy. This may only take a minute or two or it might take another hour. Be really careful that the bottom doesn’t catch and burn.
Remove from heat and fish out cinnamon stick, star anise and whole cloves – if you can’t find them don’t worry too much. I leave mine in there!
If not using right away: cool, spoon into sterilised jars and refrigerate. It should keep for a few months*.
Notes: *I’m not going to lie, I say this is my 7th year making this recipe….after the birth of Archie I am trying to cut corners where I can. And tucked away in the back of the fridge I found a jar of this from 1 (or 2!) years ago. I popped the lid and it’s still perfect! So this year we’ll be making the 1 jar stretch and next year I’ll start again and claim it as the 8th year!