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.
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.
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.
As 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.
- 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
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 1 pint
Mum of three, daydream adventurer, OU Life Sciences graduate, occasional crafter, ex-pat Canadian & quite possibly Britain's most northerly food blogger.
Kate | Veggie Desserts says
Such a great chutney to use up all the courgettes around at the moment!
Maura says
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
Elizabeth says
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!
glenn hutton says
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!
KATE SARSFIELD says
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.
Elizabeth says
I would expect it is. The same seaweeds grow all around the British coast so it would be worth looking in to!
Anneli (Delicieux_fr) says
Your chutney looks and sounds delicious. Beautiful colours and spices x
Elizabeth S says
Thank you Anneli. I do love using freshly ground spices in dishes – I think it makes all the difference to the flavour.
Jacqueline Meldrum says
I am totally craving this now Elizabeth. My lunch is going to be a great let down now 🙁
Elizabeth S says
Oh dear! Well, I guess you’ll just have to make some of your own! 😀
Senka I says
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
Elizabeth S says
Thanks Senka! I’ve just signed up to your lovely site – what a great idea and thanks for all the new traffic! 🙂
Javelin Warrior says
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…
Elizabeth S says
It is a lovely chutney, but my crisp-making skills need some work (or, I just need a mandolin slicer!)
Angela Darroch says
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.
Elizabeth S says
Hee hee, I like the sound of being a seaweed ambassador! I do love all things seaweed!