Resolution (Kygo Edit)

I like preserving things for the future, whether they be photographs found at flea markets of people I don't know or the 3kg of plums I bought because the sign read "Aus Südafrika". The photos can be stored for whenever I know what I want to do with them, but the plums were already looking fragile after their long trip. Because I did not want to get spuitpoep (haha, diarrhea) from eating them all in a day or two I baked muffins for my class (adapting this plum, hazelnut and chocolate cake by substituting some of the flour for cocoa and adding almonds, not hazelnuts). However, it felt like a drop in the bucket because I still had 2.5 kg of plums. What to do? I still have plum jam, so no more of that.

The solution was plum chutney. My sister and I have an obsession with adding Mrs. Balls chutney to almost every meal, but it isn't readily available here. Therefore I thought the plum chutney could be a decent alternative (although nothing beats Mrs. Balls).

My mother has a little book called voedselpreservering which would have been greatly helpful since I was not sure of the amount of vinegar, sugar, etc. to add. In the end I combined these two recipes (Spicy plum & apple chutney and Richly spiced plum chutney) and phoned my grandmother for help. It turned out ok, but the consistency is too jam-like. Ah well, at least it is chutney. Nom nom nom.

Apples, onions, garlic, spices, cinnamon, star anise.

 

The finished product. In the end I had 8 or 9 jars :)

Mrs Ball's

At some point, my sister and I stopped splashing tomato sauce over our food and settled on adding Mrs. Ball's Chutney to everything. We go through about one large bottle at least every 3 weeks. It could be a month if she is eating the extra hot version, which I don't like. I prefer the peach or tomato one, but for the sake of peace in the house we both eat the original Mrs Ball's chutney. No other brand will do.

The year we both spent away we would treat ourselves to a bottle ( bought at Galeria Kaufhaus for € 4) and use the tiniest bit. For every day consumption curry-ketchup had to sauce up our meals.

I have never made chutney before because I knew I could never get it to be as good as the store-bought-bottles. But on our way back from visiting the cradle of humankind, we stopped at a padstal ( a road-shop) and bought peaches. They were not very pretty and not very ripe either, so my mom suggested we make chutney.

She has this old Afrikaans book that describes how to preserve any fruit or vegetable imaginable. It also has  different chutney recipes.

Ours combines peaches, onions, sour apples, vinegar, sugar, garlic and sultanas. Also, some cinnamon, ginger and red pepper. It states that one should add sultanas, but I am no fan, so we left them out.

Here are some images:

The ingredients.

Our scale was almost not enough to hold the mass of peaches.

Mincing the fruit. You can see I am not dressed for portraits. 

My mother likes using exaggeratedly large pots.

These are your Christmas presents. 

If you are interested, here is Mrs. Ball's history and here is the link to someone claiming to have the original recipe. I am not so sure. No one can beat the real deal.