As mentioned in Day 54 of The Challenge
I planted a bunch of tomatoes this year by putting sliced tomato under a thin layer of earth. I ended up with 19 tomato plants on my little balcony. Because of how late they sprouted, we only had a few ripe tomatoes from them. The rest were growing nicely but didn't get the chance to ripen. With the first frost predicted, we harvested them and my dad's remaining green tomatoes and turned them into chutney to avoid having them go to waste. I had never tried this before but was quite pleased with how it came out!
Ingredients:
2.5 - 3 kg of unripe tomatoes
3 cooking apples, cored and chopped
3 onions, chopped
1 1/2 c raisins
1 c red wine vinegar
1 1/2 c white cooking wine
1 1/2 - 2 c brown sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp chilli flakes ( I used pul biber, Turkish red chilies)
1) Stew the tomatoes, apples and onions in a little water until they disintegrate. Add raisins, sugar and vinegar, then the spices and cook over a low heat. Place a saucer in the freezer.
2) Stir occasionally to prevent the chutney from sticking. As it thickens you'll need to stir more consistently. Taste test to check for sugar and spicing, and feel free to tweak to your taste!
3) Drop some of the hot chutney on the saucer from the freezer. If after a minute if starts to solidify and the top wrinkles and pulls tight, it should gel nicely once cool. If not, then boil it a bit longer or add sugar (or both).
4) To sterilize jars: boil clean jars and their lids for at least 15 minutes. Fill them with the boiling chutney immediately on removing them from the boiling water (canning tongs make this so much easier and makes it less likely that you'll burn yourself, but you can do it with a spoon or a spatula and a dish cloth). Fill to just below the rim, wipe the grooves clean and screw the lid on tight. As the jars and contents cool, the centre of the lid should be sucked down and the jars will be sealed properly. Place the jars upside down on a clean cloth. Label when cool. (The part about putting them upside down is from my German Oma, I don't know what's behind it but it works.)
This chutney was a little on the sweet side, which I hadn't expected. There was a slight bitterness to the after taste when it was hot that I tried to compensate for. It is not overly sweet and still has the sour, spiced chutney notes, no more bitterness. It is very tasty, especially with the baked pancakes! I highly recommend this if you have green tomatoes you don't want to spoil!