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Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

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Spiced Tomato & Courgette Chutney

Published on September 16, 2013 • Last updated July 22, 2017 by Elizabeth Atia
chutney-1

I have fond memories of home made jams and preserves from my Canadian childhood. Alas, preserving is not something I’ve become skilled at, yet, but this Autumn I am giving it a bash. This recipe is for a chutney I made because I had some very ripe cherry tomatoes in my fridge and quite a few courgettes had arrived in my organic veg box.

Someone on Twitter had suggested, when I was recently faced with a very large marrow in my veg box and didn’t know what to do with it, that a chutney could be made from marrows. Why not courgettes too? I combined elements from this recipe and this recipe from the BBC Good Food website and used freshly ground spices for an increased depth of flavour to make this chutney which, I think, is rather good! Some of this chutney was served at our local fortnightly craft group with some local seaweed cheese, oatcakes and home made butter and they all thought it was splendid too, so there you go, a tried and tested recipe!

In addition to fantastic flavours, this a remarkably easy recipe to prepare. All you do is chop everything up, plonk it in a saucepan and leave to simmer for an hour. The hardest part is waiting three weeks to allow the flavours to develop before eating it.

ShopLocal

Since this chutney was made with locally grown courgettes and garlic I thought I would include it as my own entry to my new food blogging challenge, Shop Local, which was designed to showcase all the wonderful produce available where you live. You wouldn’t think that living on a remote island in the middle of the North Sea one would have a wealth of locally grown produce available, but Shetland has quite the food story to tell.

As chutney is an integral component of a ploughman’s lunch, I thought I would expand this blog post a bit and include locally sourced ingredients for said lunch. I started with some Shetland black potatoes grown by the lovely Lynn from Hayfield Croft Produce, whose gorgeous roadside stall is pictured in the #ShopLocal logo.

Shetland Blacks are a small heritage potato with a purple skin, yellow flesh, floury texture and distinctive purple ring around the inside edge. Much to my delight they have just come into season now and are appearing in the local shops and roadside stalls.

shetland-black-crisps
While I was bottling my chutney there was just a tiny bit left over, so I popped it in the fridge to cool and taste test a little later on. I happened to be eating a packet of crisps at the time and thought, perhaps, the chutney would go well with the crisps. Oh my, it did! I decided, when it came time for the ploughman’s lunch, I would attempt making crisps with the Shetland black potato. This was my first, not wholly unsuccessful, attempt at making crisps and I was delighted that they retained the distinctive purple ring on the inside. The secret to making crisps is to cut them very thin, a difficult feat when one does not own a mandolin slicer!
boorick

You can’t have a ploughman’s lunch without some cheese, and so I bought some Artisan Island Cheese made by Caroline Henderson from Lerwick for the job. This is a delicious crumbly soft cheese made with Shetland milk and flecked with locally grown Bod Ayre seaweed. ‘Boorick’, as this particular cheese is called, was featured recently on an episode of BBC Countryfile and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who went, “Oooh? Cheese with seaweed in it, yes please!” (My blog visits peaked as folk searched for this cheese online during the show!) I’ve been on the hunt for this cheese ever since and found some recently at Scoop Wholefoods in Lerwick.

bod-ayre-grind-2As an aside, I’d like to remind everyone that you have until the end of this month (September 2013) to enter my very first blog giveaway: win one of three Bod Ayre Shetland Seaweed Grinders!

I made some experimental seeded bread with Orkney beremeal to serve with this ploughman’s lunch. Bere is a heritage six-row barley which has been grown in the Orkney Islands, a group of islands south of Shetland, for thousands of years. I do believe there is a place on the south Shetland mainland that grows it as well. Unfortunately I didn’t think the bread was particularly nice. My partner did, but I won’t be sharing the recipe just yet. Back to the drawing board for that one!

Fortunately I had some traditional Shetland bannocks purchased at my local country shop to eat instead. I am in love with these bannocks, made at at the Voe bakery just a few miles up the road from me. They go particularly well with ham from J.K. Andersons butchers, again, another business just a few miles down the road from me.

Salad (the best salad I have ever, ever eaten!) from my Turrifield veg box, organically grown on the west side of Shetland, and a bottle of mild and refreshing 60° North lager from the new Lerwick Brewing Company finished off the meal quite nicely.

If you’d like to read more about Shetland produce have a look at A Taste of Shetland: A Celebration of Shetland Food and Drink by Promote Shetland.

chutney-2
Spiced Courgette Chutney
by Elizabeth 
A delicious spicy chutney perfect with a ploughman’s lunch.
Ingredients
  • 250 grams ripe cherry tomatoes, cut into 8ths
  • 250 grams courgettes, quartered and finely sliced
  • 150 ml apple cider vinegar
  • 100 grams apple, peeled and diced
  • 120 grams light brown muscovado sugar
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp yellow mustard seeds
  • 1 cinnamon stick, halved
  • 1/4 tsp fennel seed
  • 2 green cardamoms, seeds only
  • 1/4 tsp coriander seeds
  • fresh nutmeg
  • 3 whole cloves
  • 10 grams ginger root, grated
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
  • 100 grams sultanas
Instructions
1. Grind fennel seeds, cardamom seeds, coriander seeds and nutmeg together until it forms a coarse powder.
2. Add with remaining ingredients to a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
3. Simmer, until thick and reduced, for one hour.
4. Spoon into hot sterilized jars and seal. Leave for at least 3 weeks before eating.
Details

Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 1 hour Total time: 1 hour 30 mins Yield: 1 pint

Made with Love Mondays, hosted by Javelin Warrior
Category: Recipe, Shetland

About Elizabeth Atia

Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

Previous Post: « Chocolate Courgette Cake
Next Post: Shetland Black Potato & Fennel Gratin »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kate | Veggie Desserts

    September 13, 2017 at 11:21 am

    Such a great chutney to use up all the courgettes around at the moment!

    Reply
  2. Maura

    August 3, 2014 at 8:51 am

    Hi Elizabeth – your chutney looks amazing. I would love to add it to our fundraising selection – we make preserves which we sell to raise money for Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital and some local Animal Rescues. I only make fairly small batches using a 9 litre maslin pan – most of my recipes produce between 6 and 10 jars of 8oz size. Could you tell me how many jars your recipe filled so I can increase the quantity accordingly. The quantity of fruit/veg varies from recipe to recipe but is usually around 2- 3 kg total weight.
    I assume you would be ok with me using your recipe for our fundraising?
    Kind Regards,
    Maura

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      August 3, 2014 at 9:57 am

      Hi Maura, yes please go ahead – if you like the recipe by all means make it and sell it! 🙂 I’m trying to recall how many jars I used, I think it might have been two or three small jars (the equivalent to 1.5 Kilner jars). At that time I was recycling old mustard and olive jars instead of using traditional preserving jars. I suppose the best way to find out would to do a trial run, see if you like the taste and then scale up! 🙂 Good luck!

      Reply
  3. glenn hutton

    July 3, 2014 at 3:30 pm

    Love a great chutney, don’t think I have had courgette in one so is new to me, but with the spiced tomato angle it sounds amazing! Thank you!

    Reply
  4. KATE SARSFIELD

    June 27, 2014 at 9:49 pm

    That cheese sounds gorgeous! Wonder if a similar kind is made over here (Ireland), we’ve certainly got enough seaweed & it’s going thu’ a huge revival as an ingredient/health food.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      June 28, 2014 at 7:16 am

      I would expect it is. The same seaweeds grow all around the British coast so it would be worth looking in to!

      Reply
  5. Anneli (Delicieux_fr)

    September 20, 2013 at 11:17 am

    Your chutney looks and sounds delicious. Beautiful colours and spices x

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      September 28, 2013 at 8:32 am

      Thank you Anneli. I do love using freshly ground spices in dishes – I think it makes all the difference to the flavour.

      Reply
  6. Jacqueline Meldrum

    September 18, 2013 at 8:56 am

    I am totally craving this now Elizabeth. My lunch is going to be a great let down now 🙁

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      September 28, 2013 at 8:32 am

      Oh dear! Well, I guess you’ll just have to make some of your own! 😀

      Reply
  7. Senka I

    September 17, 2013 at 10:27 am

    Hi,

    We’ve recently launched the website Alldishes.co.uk. It’s a search engine that aims to gather all the best recipes from UK and Irish websites and blogs. We’ve noticed that you have a lot of great looking recipes on your blog that we would love to feature on our site. To read more about how it all works and to sign up with your blog, please visit http://alldishes.co.uk or send us an email on info@alldishes.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!
    Kind regards,
    Senka

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      September 28, 2013 at 8:31 am

      Thanks Senka! I’ve just signed up to your lovely site – what a great idea and thanks for all the new traffic! 🙂

      Reply
  8. Javelin Warrior

    September 16, 2013 at 11:49 pm

    The chutney sounds so tasty with the combination of tomatoes, zucchini and apple. But I have to admit, I really love the look of those crisps! They look perfect…

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      September 28, 2013 at 8:30 am

      It is a lovely chutney, but my crisp-making skills need some work (or, I just need a mandolin slicer!)

      Reply
  9. Angela Darroch

    September 16, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    Wow you have been busy. You did make me laugh with the Boorick cheese. I think you could be an ambassador for all things ‘seaweed’. I love the sound of the chutney – I just need some of that cheese to go with it.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      September 28, 2013 at 8:30 am

      Hee hee, I like the sound of being a seaweed ambassador! I do love all things seaweed!

      Reply

Trackbacks

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    […] Quine’s blackcurrant flapjack. Speaking of gluts and foraging, I also want to make this tomato and courgette chutney from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary, as well as her plum cake. But I digress… My love of […]

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    August 13, 2014 at 5:46 am

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  3. Shetland Black Potato & Fennel Gratin says:
    July 18, 2014 at 6:50 pm

    […] with the skins still on with a bit of sea salt and rosemary, or even thinly sliced and made into crisps. There’s something intensely satisfying about their appearance, for me, and the fact […]

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  4. Shop Local #2 says:
    July 18, 2014 at 6:46 pm

    […] just too hot. Vegetables are harvested in the Spring and Autumn. My own entry this month is a spiced tomato and courgette chutney made with some ingredients from my locally grown organic vegetable box. The chutney was served with […]

    Reply

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About Elizabeth

Adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Loves bikes. Calls Shetland home. Read More…

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“Every day is another chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and to be the best version of you.”

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