29/10/2017

Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney: don’t just save it for cheese

Name: Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 150 min
Total time: 180 min
Ingredients: 0.5 tbsp black mustard seeds; 0.5 tbsp coriander seeds; 1 kg tomatoes (roughly chopped); 500 g red onions (skinned & sliced); 4-8 red chillies (deseeded, chopped); 6 cloves garlic (skinned & sliced); 20 g ginger root (peeled & grated); 175 g brown sugar; 150 ml red wine vinegar; 1-2 tbsp smoked paprika; 1-2 tsp salt; 1-3 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney, spicy with a sweet edge, is utterly addictive!

Great for using up homegrown tomatoes and/or chillies, its smokiness comes from a generous amount of Spanish paprika.

Delicious and versatile, you’ll love it not just with cheese and crackers, but with kebabs, burgers and more.

Even if you’ve never made chutney before, you’ll find it easy with my beginner’s guide and step-by-step instructions.

Jump to Recipe

Chutney worthy?

Like many people who make their own jams and chutneys I often give away some of my preserves. But I have to admit I rather jealously guard this Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney.

Fans of the Seinfeld TV series may recall Elaine assessing whether potential partners were ‘sponge-worthy’. Regarding giveaways of this chutney, I find myself appraising friends and relations in the same manner. Do they deserve one of the limited number of jars? Are they chutney-worthy?

Not just for cheese

It isn’t just that the sweet and spicy concoction, made smoky by a generous amount of smoked paprika, tastes so good. It’s that Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney has so many uses.

Besides being great on the side of spicy dishes or as a zingy alternative to tomato ketchup, you can incorporate it into loads of other sauces, dips and dressings to give meals a real kick.

In fact, for lovers of spice, there’s not many savoury foods that can’t be improved by a few spoonfuls of this wonderful condiment:

Use as a chilli sauce for falafel: thin with a little water, lemon juice or yogurt and stir in fresh mint and/or coriander
On a burger (meat or veggie) with cheese, pickles, mayo, lettuce
Combine chutney with lamb or beef mince, along with ground cumin, before forming into kebabs and grilling
Stir into plain yogurt and a squeeze of lemon and use as a dressing for grilled kebabs, salads and roast vegetables
Mix with olive oil and lemon and use to marinade meat, fish or veggies before cooking
Give a kick to pizza or pasta tomato sauces
Add to grated cheese for tastier cheese on toast
Heat up in traditional Staffordshire Oatcakes with sausages, bacon, mushrooms or cheese

Of course you can eat this chutney the traditional way, with some good cheeses plus homemade crackers and biscuits and you won’t be disappointed.

One of my favourite ways of eating this chutney is as a quirky, savoury version of that British classic, the cream tea. Homemade cheese scones spread with soft cheese and topped with Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney.

Beginner’s Guide to Chutney

If you’ve never made chutney before, it’s actually very simple. It’s even easier than making jam as you don’t need to worry about getting a setting point.

For chutney, so long as you make sure that virtually all of the liquid is cooked off as per the recipe instructions, you should be fine.

You’ll need jars that have plastic-lined lids so the vinegar doesn’t corrode them. But most jars, whether you’ve bought them specially or are recycling old ones, will have plastic-lined lids anyway.

Before you start on the chutney, I suggest you get your jars and lids ready. Give them a good wash in very hot, soapy water, rinse in clean water then leave upside down to drain. It’s always better to have a few more jars than you think you might need as it’s a pain when you’re potting up and find you don’t have enough. I like to have a few smaller jars ready too in case you can’t quite fill your last regular-sized jar.

You’ll need a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan in which to make the chutney. This should be made of stainless steel or enamel. As with the jar lids, this is because vinegar would corrode a metal saucepan. Don’t use aluminium, copper or cast iron.

A note on chillies & heat

The quantity given for fresh chillies in the recipe is a rough guide only.

This is because not only does the heat of chillies vary greatly, but so do individuals’ ideas of what constitutes ‘hot’.

Bear in mind also that the chutney will mellow as it matures over several months.

My advice is to be brave and make the chutney good and hot!

Besides the fresh chillies, I’ve included chilli flakes in the ingredients so you can easily increase the heat factor at various stages if need be.

Like hot chutneys? Try my Hot & Spicy Courgette Chutney too!

SOFTENING THE VEGETABLES

All the prepared vegetables, tomatoes (ok, tomato is a fruit), onions, chillies, garlic and ginger, are put into your saucepan along with brown sugar, red wine vinegar, dry-roasted mustard and coriander seeds, smoked paprika, salt and optional chilli flakes.

Once everything has been brought to a boil, it’s left to gently simmer for about an hour, just needing an occasional stir, until all the vegetables are soft.

PUREE & REDUCE

Next, the mixture is reduced to a chunky puree using a handheld stick blender.

You can make it a completely smooth, ketchup-like sauce if you like, but I think a bit of texture is much more pleasing.

Once the puree has been brought to a boil, the heat’s turned down and the mixture gently cooked until no loose liquid runs into the gap made when you draw a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot. You’ll need to stir often to stop any sticking.

Word of warning: the boiling hot puree can splutter an awful lot so be careful and stand as far back as possible – you don’t want it hitting you in the eye or on your skin.

Depending on the depth and width of your saucepan and the amount of chutney you’re making, this stage could take an hour or more. But don’t be tempted to rush it; long and slow will give you a better flavour in the end. When I made a double batch (I really do love this chutney!) the saucepan was quite full so it took around 1 hour 10 minutes.

During this time, you can put your oven on to a low heat and place your jars and lids on a baking tray inside. Not only will this thoroughly dry them, but it should help to sterilize any lurking bugs that might spoil your chutney. Leave them in there while you reduce the chutney, but turn the oven off once the jars are hot.

The finished chutney should be dark and thick. Hopefully you can see the difference between the two images above. The first was taken 40 minutes into the cooking and the second 70 minutes. At the end of the cooking, it should be dark and jammy.

POTTING THE CHUTNEY

When there’s no loose liquid, take your jars from the oven and pack the chutney into them. Because I make a lot of preserves, I have a jam funnel which makes the job much less messy. When you’ve filled the jars (protecting your hands with a cloth), screw the lids on. You don’t need to screw the lids completely tight at this stage – it’s much easier when they’ve cooled a bit.

You should also find that once the jars are completely cold then the lids, if you press the top, no longer spring back and make a popping sound. When they don’t do this, you know that you’ve an airtight seal.

Important Note: if the lids still spring back even when the chutney is completely cold, then you don’t have an airtight seal. Your options then are either:

Take the chutney out of the jars and reboil it. Go through the washing and sterilizing of the jars and lids again and re-pot while both chutney and jars are hot OR
Accept that you will have to store the chutney in the fridge and use within a few weeks.

MATURING & STORING

You can now label your jars and put in a cool dark place and leave to mature. A kitchen cupboard away from the oven or a radiator should be fine.

The chutney will taste good right away, but it will be so much better if you can leave it for 6 – 8 weeks.

If your last jar wasn’t completely full, keep it in the fridge and use it up within a month or so.

The usual advice is to use chutney within a year, although many people (including me) keep them for much longer than that.

However, if you’ve any concerns, use it up within 12 months.

And don’t forget that Smoky Tomato Chilli Chutney makes a lovely present for a foodie friend or family member.

Just so long as they’re ‘chutney-worthy’, of course!

Post updated 03/09/2021 with additional images and tips.

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