Cucumbers keep on coming, so I was back in the kitchen earlier in the week to make a chutney. This is what I used:
1lb cooking apples
1/2 lb shallots
1lb cucumbers
1/2 pint malt vinegar
1/2 lb sugar (was supposed to be demerara, but I didn't have enough so mixed it with granulated)
1 tsp salt (was supposed to be 1/2 tsp - doesn't seem to have affected it though)
1 tsp cayenne pepper (as with salt it was supposed to be 1/2 tsp as I was making half the quantity in the recipe - that's why I'm calling it spicy!)
This is what I did:
Peeled, cored and chopped the apples. Peeled and chopped the shallots (was supposed to be finely, but I'm not very good at fine chopping - maybe I should be calling this chunky & spicy chutney). Deseeded the cucumbers and chopped - once again, should have been finely!
Put it all into a pan with the vinegar and brought to the boil.
Simmered until soft (about 20 minutes)
Added the sugar, salt & cayenne pepper, and stirred to dissolve the sugar.
Left to simmer until it reached chutney consistency (about another hour), stirring every now and again to stop it sticking.
Decanted into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, and sealed.
It does taste lovely... if you like it spicy!
Cucumbers seem to be growing by the minute... I check them in the morning and they aren't ready, by lunch time they need to be picked!
So, pickling some of them seemed to be a good idea, and this has been the easiest recipe so far. All I needed was:
Cucumbers
Salt
Spiced Vinegar (I cheated a bit and used a ready made one)
This is what I did:
Washed and dried this many cucumbers
Cut them into chunks and placed them in a bowl, layering them with salt
Placed the bowl in the fridge for 24 hours.
Rinsed well and left to drain
Packed into sterilised jars and covered with vinegar
They should be ready to eat in about 4 weeks.
I stripped the gooseberry bush of fruit this morning with the intention of making jam. I filled a colander which surprised me as there didn't seem to be that many on the bush.
I found a recipe, and had to adjust the quantities to match the weight after I had topped and tailed them, so this is what I used:
2 1/2 lbs gooseberries
1 1/4 pints of water
1 1/4 lbs granulated sugar
1 1/4 lbs jam sugar (with added pectin)
I did half and half of the sugar because by all accounts gooseberries have enough natural pectin in them so you don't need to add any... I still thought it best to supplement it though.
This is what I did:
Placed the gooseberries in a pan with the water
Simmered until soft, which took about 20 minutes
Although, I thought there was far too much water in the pan, so decanted out about 3/4 pint. I took it off the heat, added the sugar and stirred to dissolve it
Then placed it back on the heat to boil rapidly
Apparently it should only take about 5 minutes to set, but mine took about 30 minutes to get a jam consistency. I stirred it periodically and also removed the scum that settles on the top. It also changed colour from green to red.
I potted up into it into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, using my recently purchased jam funnel
and sealed them.
This was how it looked on a scone, when still warm... yummy!
