Fresh or Dried, Making Apricot Chutney Is Easier Than You Think.

   Growing up I always knew that jelly, jams and preserves came in a glass jar. Hell, we used them as drinking glasses when we were done. How all this stuff got in the glass jar however was a mystery. I knew it involved heavy industry, jelly factories etc. and I never related the end result to all the fruit trees I used to see driving around what is now known as Silicon Valley with my parents when I was a kid. This is back when Google Headquarters was a cherry orchard or some such thing, and Cupertino was not known for it's Apples but for it's blackberries.

   Looking at the jellies, jams and preserves on the supermarket shelves, I always wanted the good stuff with the fancy lable. The expensive stuff. My mother however had other ideas similar to this...



It seemed the only way I was going to get good organic stuff was going to be if I made it/grew it myself, and so I set out to learn how to can. As long as one minds the cleanliness and sanitation rules, canning is pretty dang easy and safe. Pretty soon I was scouring around LA looking for fruit in my friends trees, or just generally foraging. When I couldn't find anything, The Santa Monica Farmers Market was always there, full of whatever I needed at any given time.

   One of my favorite things to make has always been apricot chutney. Nothing beats the fresh perfume of perfectly ripe apricots, bit of course those aren't available to everyone nor are they around any time of the year, so it's always great to find a recipe that works with either fresh fruit or dried fruit. I've made this chutney both ways for years. It can be canned for future use, or put in the fridge where it will keep for a few days.

Apricot Chutney

Here's What You Need:
1/2 lb dried apricots or 2 lbs of fresh apricots
3 Tbs lime juice
2 Tbs ghee or unsalted butter
1/2 tbs minced ginger root
1/2 tsp kalonji aka black onion seed
2/3 cup dried currants
1 3inch piece of cinnamon stick
1/2 cup dark brown sugar or jaggery
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp kashmiri chili or cayenne

Here's What To Do:
If you've got dried apricot halves, cut them into quarters and soak them overnight in  2 cups of hot water and 3 Tbs of lime juice.
If you're using fresh apricots, pit them, and halve them, and cut them into slices.

Place fresh sliced apricots into a bowl  and set them aside.

Chop the ginger finely.

 Add it to the black onion seeds.

In a pot or saucepan heat the butter. When it's hot and foamy add in the ginger, black onion seeds, kashmiri chili, salt, and cinnamon stick.

 Stir everything around for a few seconds and add in the apricots...

...3 Tbs of lime juice...and 1/2 cup dark brown sugar or jaggery

...and 1/2 cup of water...

If you're using the dried apricots, just dump the apricots and the lime and water soaking mixture into the pot at that point.
Turn the heat up a bit and bring everything to a boil.

Then turn the heat down and let it simmer. Stir it every now and then so nothing sticks.
The apricot chutney is done when it turns thick and glossy and the apricots are soft.

If you are not canning the chutney, you're done. After it cools put it into an airtight container in the fridge and use in with int the week.
If you're canning, sterilize your jars and lids fill them with hot chutney.

Then put them into boiling water for 20 minutes to process them.

When the lids "pop" they're sealed and ready for shelf storage...or you can just enjoy right away.

There are many resources for canning online here or you can check out Mrs. Wheelbarrows excellent book . either way once you start canning you'll never  want to go back to off the shelf again. Coming up next, fresh vegetables right out of the garden Indian style.
 Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Summer's Here, It's Mango Chutney Making Time!

   I grew up in a household where jelly and jams and pickles came in a jar from the market, and cranberry sauce wasn't the "real deal" unless it stood ringed and shivering upright on on the plate. As a working class city kid the idea of making your own condiments was not even on the table. Everyone was working too hard to bother with heavy duty cooking and it was easier and cheaper for my mom to open a box, or buy jelly in glasses that we later used for tableware. By the way, one could also get peanut butter that way back in the day and we had a whole set of "good glassware" that had started out as Big Top Peanut Butter Jars.

Do you know how much peanut butter I had to eat to get a Thanksgiving setting??? Don't even ask. As to Big Top, this is what it looked like... sort of American Horror Story Light.

No wonder I don't like clowns. The idea of actually buying jars and filling them with something one made oneself, was not even contemplated. So, when I got older I became interested in doing just that. I learned to make pickles. I cured olives, and bacon. I made my own  jams, jellies, and chutneys.

   Canning, if one is careful, is actually a really economical and fun way to do home cooking. It's even better if one has access to fruit trees, or one's neighbors do, or one lives in a place where one can forage and glean. Short of that, there are sales and Farmers Markets where things can be bought in bulk. I used to make chutney of the loquats that grew all over the place when we lived in Santa Monica. Friends used to bring them to me to can, and I hated to see something that could be eaten rotting on the sidewalk, or in someones' back yard. Here in Sonoma, I live in a paradise of fruit and vegetables, some of which I grow myself. I don't raise mangoes however and right now we're in peak mango season which means they can be gotten cheaply.

   Whole Foods had a sale on organic mangoes the other day, at 12 dollars a case. One case (12 mangoes) makes 5 pints of chutney, or 10 half pints. When one cooks as much Indian food as I do I'm always opening a bottle of my own chutney for dinner parties, so this is a sweet deal. I have a garage full of canning jars all ready to be filled each season, and I was way behind schedule as we were renovating our new house last Summer and so no canning got done. The pantry was bare. I bought a case of mangoes and got busy.

For those of you who don't want to can , you can also make this chutney in a smaller amount, and keep it in the fridge, just halve this recipe, you'll have plenty left over but it keeps for a while.

Mango Chutney

Here's What You Need:
12 mangoes
5 cups of jaggery  ( you can also use dark brown sugar)
4 Tbs salt
4 Tbs coconut or other vegetable oil
2 Tbs black mustard seeds
4 tsp  crushed cumin seeds
4 cloves
3 cinnamon sticks (about 3 inches each)
1 tsp turmeric
1 to 2 tsp of kashmiri chili

Here's What To Do:
Peel and cut the mangoes into cubes.

Add in the salt.

Add in the brown sugar, or jaggery.

Stir everything together well.

Set it aside and turn you attention to spices.

Put the cumin seeds in a mortar and crush them. They don't have to be pulverized, just sort of smashed.

 Add in the cloves and cinnamon.

Set this aside.
Place a large stainless steel pot on the stove, add in the vegetable oil and heat it up. When it's hot add in the mustard seeds.

When the mustard seeds start to pop, add in the cumin, cinnamon and cloves.

Give everything a stir and add in the mango, salt, sugar mixture.

Bring things to a boil, then lower the heat to a strong simmer, add in the turmeric.

Cook at this heat, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks. You want to cook this for about 1 and 1/2 hours, or until it thickens.

When it's a nice thick blend add in the Kashmiri chili.

Taste the chutney for heat, if you like more kick add a bit more. The best way to do this is start with the smallest amount of chili and then add to that until you're happy with the flavor.
If you're making chutney and not canning it, you are done. Let it cool and then put it into a sealed container in the fridge til you are ready to use it.
If you are canning, sterilize your canning jars  (I run them through the sterilize cycle  on my dishwasher) then put them in boiling water.
Here's an easy tutorial on how to do this. Just click here.
When my filled sterilized jars are ready I place them in the boiling water bath.

place the lid on the pot and boil them for 20 minutes.

Lift them out and let them cool, you will hear the "pop" of the lids as they cool letting you know you have created a seal.

Label your jars and store them in your pantry, or you can open one and enjoy right away.

Canning is simple once you get the hang of it. I've been doing this for about 20 years and there is a lot of information about this both on line and in books.
Mrs. Wheelbarrows Practical Pantry is a great guide to all things preserving, I highly recommend it.

Once you've tried this ancient skill I promise you'll get hooked and start looking around for anything that can be shoved in a jar. Meanwhile you have all that delicious chutney to enjoy.

Coming up next, more chutney recipes, and great easy Indian recipes for Summer entertaining follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Rhubarb Cherry Chutney, Because The Only Thing Better Than Free, Is A Sale!

    I never could resist a sale. Ever. Growing up in a very frugal blue collar family where money was tight, I learned to like a lot of stuff because it was cheap or on sale. Most of this stuff was fresh vegetables and fruit. No candies or sweet treats at our house, no sugary drinks, as they were considered an expensive indulgence.

   "Here,have an apple, there's a tree in the back yard" my mother would say.

   Thanks to her, I never developed a taste for soda, or a lot of the stuff my friends had in their lunchboxes in elementary school. I didn't get the Twinkies, or the Hostess SnoBalls. It's not that I didn't try to get that stuff. I attempted the usual trading at lunch but not many people (try no one) was interested in swapping me a Twinkie for a Gravenstein apple. I quickly became known around the school yard as Applecore Gori since remembering my moms no waste rule I ate the entire apple. Like a goat.

   Like a small goat I also learned to forage around the neighborhood. I learned to pick and eat sour grass, parts of certain flowers had centers that contained a sweet nectar. There were edible berries in Golden Gate Park around the corner, and it seemed like nearly everyone's yard, even in the midst of a neighborhood of drifting sand dunes, had some tree that produced some sort of fruit. Later, when I moved to Los Angeles, I loved having lemons and avocados in the backyard, strawberry guava trees and loquats which a lot of people ignored but which make excellent chutney. Now, here in Sonoma all sorts of edible plants abound.  I've planted fruit trees at our new house, and I also do my share of gleaning. But even here in Sonoma, I can't always find everything I want growing by the side of the road. That's where the sale gene kicks in. When they throw up those numbers and percentage marks, that's when I come running.
 
   Last week there was a sale at our local Whole Foods. They were offering beautiful organic cherries for 1.99 a pound. I was so there. At the same time I saw some great local rhubarb for cheap so I snapped that up too. So there I was, rhubarb and cherries in hand, what to do, what to do?

    Since I am still in a temporary kitchen, I have very few of my usual cooking tools because of my "Fragile!" "Glass!" brilliant idea so it seemed that baking anything was out of the question. I did have a large skillet and measuring spoons, and that seemed to be all I needed to make a quick and tasty chutney. There are a lot of ways to make chutney. This is a very simple one and you can adjust the seasoning to whatever you'd like heat-wise. Just taste and adjust as you go. It's that easy.

Cherry Rhubarb Chutney

Here's What You Need:
1 lb of rhubarb
1 lb of fresh Bing cherries
1/4 cup of water
3/4 cup of sugar
6 pods green cardamom, cracked seeds removed
6 cloves
2 pinches of Kashmiri chili
2 large cinnamon sticks
2 pinches of ground cinnamon
the juice of 1/2 lemon

Here's What To Do:
Wash the cherries and rhubarb
Cut the tough ends and the little green leaves off of the stallks if there are any.

Chop the rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces.

Put the cut rhubarb into a large bowl.
Pit the cherries.

Cut the pitted cherries into halves.

Mix the cherry halves with the rhubarb pieces.

Mix the water and sugar together in a skillet. Turn the heat up to medium and mix the water and sugar together until they're well blended.
Add in the rhubarb and cherries.

Toss in the cinnamon sticks, the cinnamon, the pinches of kashmiri chili, the cardamom seeds, and the cloves.

Bring the water to a boil, and when it does boil, turn the heat down to simmer. Cook the rhubarb and cherries down for about 35 minutes.

When the rhubarb and cherries have softened and cooked down add in the lemon juice.

Let the chutney cool down. Check the heat factor. If you'd like to add more chili do so but in very small amounts until you have the chutney as hot as you'd like it. Chili added to foods takes a while to sink in and when you add heat, let it sit for 15 minutes or so and check again before you add more.
Serve the chutney warm or at room temperature, but if you're not serving it right away, refrigerate it.

   This chutney can be used on a sandwich, with chicken or pork, even as a topping for ice cream or yogurt. Best of all it can be made with minimum equipment and in very little time. Coming up next, a cool summer ice cream and some cool equipment from OXO. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori