Indian spiced tomato and Pepper Chutney - recipe

I am adding this tasty recipe to the blog for future reference and for Kella who has asked me for it. It's from the 'Women's Institute' book of Preserves, see below. I would thoroughly recommend anyone growing their own veg and fruit to buy it, the recipes are very good and clear to follow.
'Lakeland' are selling the same book for £14.99, BUT I bought it from 'The Book People' online, the link is below and will take you straight to the book. and they are selling it for £4.99. postage is free if you spend over £15 ( I think that's right) and I did, otherwise a modest amount is added for P & P, so still a great saving. They also do a great range of Allotment and veg growing related books and are very cheap.

By the way they also sell the 'Hummingbird Bakery cook book , that I recommended recently in another post, and from the book people it's only £4.99, even less than I bought it for from 'Amazon' at £8.49, and it's £16.99 in my local book shop, why is there such big differences ?? it really pays to shop around doesn't it?

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10051_172245_100_500020__category_

I originally took a photograph of the recipe page, but it wouldn't enlarge to be able to read it. Sometimes I hate Blogger !!! so here goes the old fashioned way. I have copied the recipe exactly as it says in the book.

Indian-Spiced Tomato and Pepper Chutney

Makes 2 x 500 ml (18 fl oz jars) .... ( I Put mine in smaller jars, lasts longer that way )

Preparation & cooking time : 2 hours

Although you can use Vine tomatoes for this and other tomato recipes, I've found that plum tomatoes have far less water, which means that they cook down more quickly and also produce a higher yield.

INGREDIENTS

2kg (4 lb 8 oz) ripe plum tomatoes

1 teaspoon black or brown mustard seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 red peppers, de-seeded, quartered and sliced thinly crosswise

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 dried red Kashmiri chillies, roughly chopped

2.5 cm (1 inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated

300 gms (10 oz) golden caster sugar

1 litre (1 and half pints) white wine vinegar

salt to taste

METHOD

1 Prepare the tomatoes by cutting into quarters and removing the cores. Set aside

2 Heat a small frying pan over a medium heat. Add the seeds and dry fry for a minute or two, stirring, until the seeds begin to pop. Remove from the heat to a pestle & mortar and grind well. Add the turmeric and set aside.

3 Put the tomatoes, peppers, onion, ground spices, chillies, ginger, sugar and wine vinegar into a large preserving pan. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring often, until all the sugar has dissolved.

( why couldn't they have said put all the ingredients into the pan ????)

4 Cook for about 1 hour, then pick out as many tomato skins as you can (use a pair of long handled tongs, if you have them).

5 Continue to cook for a further 30 minutes. Check if the chutney is ready by dragging a channel through the mixture (with a wooden spoon) so that the bottom of the pan is visible. If the channel fills immediately with liquid, the chutney is not yet ready. Cook for a further 10 minutes and check again. The chutney is ready when the channel does not fill and the mixture is very thick.

6 Remove the pan from the heat and leave to stand briefly. Add salt to taste. Carefully pour (use a jam funnel for best results) into hot sterilised jars and seal. Allow the chutney to cool completely before labelling and storing in a cool, dark cupboard. Store for at least 2 months before eating.

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PHEW !! now you know why I tried to cheat and take a photo !, but don't be put off by all the ingredients as it's so simple to make and delicious. I hope you enjoy making it. +See my notes below on things I had to adapt.

One last thing, I didn't have plum tomatoes, and I also had a selection of different vine tomatoes that I had grown, this worked OK. also I only had green peppers, but I rather liked the mix of colour in the chutney. I couldn't get any Kashmiri dried red chillies, so I used some small red FRESH birds eye chillies (hot) and took a few seeds out in case it got too hot during storage, which can happen with chillies. Next time I will try and get all the ingredients the same as the recipe, but it really tasted great anyway. One more thing, try and get as many tomato skins out as possible ( as the recipe suggests ) it was a pain but worth the effort.