Making Chutney

OK the fruit is going over ripe and winter is ahead....making chutney is the answer!

Compostwoman wrote this:

I, on the other hand, have a different issue...my chutney always takes far longer than the recipe says it will!

When I make chutney, I do it in the correct sized pan, on the right heat, with the correct ( for the general recipe) amount of fruit, vinegar etc...

and inveriably mine takes 5 hours to get to chutney point for potting...

I suspect I am a slow simmer sort of chutney maker, but.... my chutney is uniformly pronouced as really good/excelent etc

usually I make one less jar than the recipe suggests...

any thoughts?

I am NOT asking for help, particularly as I like my chutney BUT am interested to see if any one else says " oh yes, mine takes far longer as well...." or "no, mine doesn't"

I think CW has the answered her own comment really as if you cook it for 5 hrs and it makes one less pot it has been reduced more than the recipe intended.

Which really goes down to how moist you want the product to be, which a lot depends on how long you keep the chutney before eating it. If, like me, you tend to eat the chutney 6 months to 1 year after making (min) its a good idea to keep it "soft" when potting it. Firm can dry out a bit but is good if you eat it at 3 months old.

No, it is " reasonably runny" and I pot it up just after the channel test point is reached...

Actually, thinking about it, it is only the HFW glutney recipe which does this, its just that I tend to use that for all the different types I make...

Puzzling

I hope you won't mind me borrowing this thread, but Mrs C-H yesterday tried this recipe for spiced pear and cranberry relish. Now, I had looked at the ingredients and thought that all those pears might make it quite wet, but decided that it must be OK, it's in Good Food, after all ...

Well, results are rather wet and sloppy. The pear, cranberries and all have disintegrated into a (quite sweet) mush. Were the pears too ripe, the cooking time too long, duff recipe ...? And more importantly, can the situation be rescued in any way ?

What does it taste like?

I would add a few more more robust ingredients and maybe some walnuts (always delicious in chutney) and cook on.

I would interpret the recipe as
cook everything except the pears until it well cooked and a soft consistancy, reduced to the level of moistness required.
Add pears and cook a bit more, stopping before they desintegrate.

You didn't say if you used fresh or dried cranberries. I would have thought there would be quite a bit of difference to how much fluid the dried ones would soak up.

What to do. I would return it to a pan that allows it to reduce a bit more. Especially if you are not going to store it for a long time. Get it to the thickness you want it to be - usually it starts to spit at you! Then I would add some more pairs - 2 or 3 (depending on how big they are) to give it the chunky texture and reduce the heat to cook the pears but not destroy them. This will keep the flavour as pear and cranberry!

Mm it does look a lot of vinegar to fruit..so like Billy and Zoe I would cook on, maybe add a few more ingedients until it gets to the jam consistancy..do the channel test..if a spoon leaves a channel which does not fill up immediately, it is done.

I posted up my method and my general purpose chutney/relish recipe here which has a picture of what finished chutney should look like in the pan when doing the channel test. Hope it helps!