Those familiar with the brief British summer might also be familiar with how quickly it comes to an end. Suddenly, September brings near-winter weather, the scarves are out, the leaves have turned, and the tomatoes are still... green. It seems to happen every year.
Now, I could easily put this down to my own procrastination. My tomatoes rarely get going until April, and I'd probably have a lot more ripe fruits if I started them earlier indoors. But this year, nonetheless, I was confronted with a good harvest of green tomatoes.
I'm a big fan of fried green tomatoes, and have tried to convert many a friend to such delicacies, but the little cherry tomatoes I've grown this year just wouldn't do for that. Instead, I've made an autumn chutney, a good mixture of autumn veg and fruit - mixing together a few recipes as well. It's thick with green and red tomatoes, sweet with apple, raisin, and muscovado sugar, spicy with fresh chili and onion, and sour with a good dose of malt vinegar. The stewing mess of fruits is laced, ever so gently, with mustard seed.
It cooks down on the stove in about an hour, and then gets jarred into sterile jars (or bottles, whatever you have). I've opted to process mine in boiling water for twenty minutes, just to be on the safe side. It's roughly similar to a number of recipes I browsed through, but probably closest (but for the apple) to Nigel Slater's Mixed Tomato Chutney.
*****
800 grams of mixed green and red tomatoes
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
a handful of raisins
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 chili, finely chopped
3/4 cup muscovado sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. mustard seed
1 cup malt vinegar
Bring your green tomatoes, onion, raisins, apples, chili, sugar, salt, mustard, and vinegar to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer, adding your tomatoes after about twenty minutes. Simmer for a further forty minutes, stirring occasionally. Spoon the hot chutney into clean, sterile jars, seal, and process in boiling water for twenty minutes (or eat within two weeks).
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