Winter has finally arrive here in London. The tomatoes on the plant outside are onto their last leg of the season. Many of them have or are beginning to go brown. As it’s quite temperate here unlike the mediterranean one does end up with a fair bit of unripen green tomatoes. What does one do with them? One of the ways is make them into a chutney. This recipe green tomato chutney uses sultana, sugar and vinegar to take away the bitter taste of unripen tomatoes.

This recipes makes two jam jars (about 400 gms). I make it one kilo of green tomatoes so that one can double up the recipe if there is more green tomatoes.

Ingredients

1 kilo green tomatoes (any variety)

250 grms sultana

100 grms brown sugar

1 small red chilli (optional, if one doesn’t like any spiciness)

1 medium size onion

3 cloves garlic

3 cm size ginger

60 mls of white vinegar

2 jam jars (400 grms in size) sterilized if possible. I just put the chutney I made into the fridge or freezer. As at the moment I don’t trust my sterilising skills. I am sure it’s a bit like sterilising baby bottles no?

Cooking

Peel and chopped the onion into small squares. Peel and chop the garlic finely. Grated the ginger. Slice the green tomatoes 2cm slices. Slice the red chilli finely as well. Remove the seed if one doesn’t like any strong spice. If the a huge variety cut them into half first before slicing them.

Put all the chopped and sliced ingredients n a medium size pot. Heat up till it boils. then turn the heat down to low heat. No need for adding any water as there is loads of water in the tomatoes. Add the sultanas, then slowly add half the sugar and all of the vinegar. And the rest to taste.

It takes about half to one hour to boil the chutney down. When it’s done it turns to nice caramel brown colour and it starts sticking to the pot then it’s done. It looks like the picture above. Let it cool down then put them in jars.