This green tomato chutney was a bit of an impromptu recipe. Last minute it might have been, but I can’t get enough of it! Problem is, I’ve run out of green tomatoes!
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
The Glory of Autumn
I love autumn, it’s my favourite season for all sorts of reasons. I detest hot weather, so the falling temperatures are always a welcome change at this time of year.
But it’s more than that, one of the most beautiful sights to me, is the colour changes; the various shades of yellow, brown and red are simply spectacular.
Then, of course, there’s the food. All sorts of fresh game to play around with in the kitchen, and all that autumnal fruit and vegetables from the garden. Or the supermarket!
Green Tomato Chutney Recipe
We had a bit of a garden tidy last week, and my 12 year old, who’s in charge of picking, collected 2 huge bowls of green tomatoes (and tomatillos, chillies, cucamelons and figs).
Apart from making a big batch of the Indonesian green chilli condiment, called Sambal Ijo (green sambal), I’ve not really done much with green tomatoes. As I rarely eat fried food, fried green tomatoes don’t really appeal much, so I usually just add them to salads, curries and stews.
But this past weekend, I was about to make some apple chutney when I happened to glance at the green tomatoes, sitting on the windowsill. So I put aside the apples and made me some green tomato chutney instead.
Indian Style Tomato Chutney
I decided to go for an Indian style chutney, for no particular reason. The difference between Indian and Western style chutneys usually lies in the amount of sugar used. Our chutneys tend to be on the sweet side, tangy but pretty sweet, unlike their Asian counterparts.
Maybe, when chatnis were first introduced to the UK during the late 18th century, they were spicy things. So a lot of sugar was needed to tone them down to suit the British palate. Sounds like a reasonable deduction, doesn’t it? Mmm, I feel a long post on chutneys coming up soon!
Green Tomato Chutney Ingredients
I’m going to briefly talk you through some of the ingredients I’m using. There is only 1 “pesky” ingredient, and that’s the herb I’m using. But I shall give you an alternative for it.
Green tomatoes
That’s rather obvious, right? If you don’t grow your own, the best place to get them would be at any farmers’ markets. They will be trying to get rid of them at this time of year.
Any kind and any size will do, even tomatillos, if you have access to them. Although, if using tomatillos, you’ll need more sugar. Taste it, and adjust accordingly. I have a huge bag of them in the fridge, I might do a post on a tomatillo chutney, if I can find the time.
Sugar
I wanted to retain as much of the green colour as possible, so I’ve gone for white sugar. Flavour wise, I think I made the right choice here, as there was none of that molasses flavour in the green tomato chutney, but good old tartness.
Chillies
Initially, I thought of adding a couple of green chillies. But I changed my mind and went for the dried red chilli option, as I remember my granny doing with all her various Indian dishes. The dried chillies don’t fall apart and muck up the colour.
You can leave out the chillies altogether, or use fresh ones (preferably green), adding them with the tomatoes.
Curry Leaves
Because I decided to go down the Indian route, I’ve gone for the combination of curry leaves, dried chilli and mustard seeds. I have a curry leaf plant; if you are in the UK, you will find the leaves, sold alongside the other fresh herbs, in Waitrose, depending on where you live.
The 2 branches I use, Christchurch and Winton, both stock them. If you don’t have access to curry leaves, leave them out and use a dried bay leaf instead.
How to Serve our Tomato Chutney?
- as a condiment alongside an Indian meal, with rice or roti
- use it in a sandwich or burger of any kind, be it meat, seafood or vegetarian
- serve it with cheese and crackers/bread
- this chutney also makes a great dip, whether as it is, or mixed with mayo
- stir it into grains like rice, couscous, and quinoa
- it makes a great salad dressing, again, as it is, or lightened with olive oil and lemon juice (or more vinegar)
- use it as a marinade in roasts and grills
- our green tomato chutney also makes a mean omelette, like our chipotle and red chilli pesto ones below
By the way, it also makes a great foodie gift.
How long will our Chutney Keep?
If you store this green tomato chutney in the fridge, in a clean jar, it will keep for a week. To extend this to about 2 weeks, cover the chutney with a layer of vegetable oil, about 1 cm high.
You can also extend the shelf life of this tomato chutney in the following two ways:
Canning/Preserving our Green Tomato Chutney
- Stick with this recipe and use the pressure canning method. Preserved this way, your chutney will last a good 2 years. You can read more about pressure canning here. Pressure canners are not really a thing here in the UK.
- Give your green tomato chutney a water bath. And, until I do a post on the water bath method, you can read more about that here!
And now, shall we get our aprons on?
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And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor.
Lin xx
Green Tomato Chutney
Equipment
- saucepan and ladles
- 2 x 200ml jars for storage
Ingredients
- 500 g green tomatoes
- ½ Tbsp vegetable oil (or use mustard oil, if you happen to have it)
- 1 sprig curry leaf
- ¼ tsp black mustard seeds
- 2 dried red chillies
- 1 onion medium
- 2 Tbsp white sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 125 ml white wine vinegar or regular vinegar
Instructions
Prep Work
- Rinse the tomatoes and set aside.
- Halve, then thinly slice the onion. Set aside.
Let's get cooking
- Heat the oil in a saucepan on medium heat and fry the curry leaves, dried chillies and mustard seeds for 30 seconds.
- Add the onions, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring a couple of times.
- Add the tomatoes, sugar, salt and vinegar and bring to as simmer.
- Then, lower the heat right down and cook for 20-30 minutes, until the chutney is thick and the tomatoes are very soft and have mostly lost their shape. If it gets too dry, add just a tiny amount of water, but you shouldn't need to. You could squash the tomatoes slightly, if you like. I cooked it for 20 minutes only.You'll have to stir the chutney a few times during this cooking period, especially at the end, when it's dry and will start catching at the bottom.
- Check the seasoning and add more salt or even sugar or vinegar if you feel like you would prefer it saltier, sweeter or more tart.If adding more vinegar, cook it for an additional 5 minutes.
- Cool and store in the fridge as mentioned in the post above.
Me autorizas a postearlo en mi foro. Gracias Saludos
Sure, just add a link to my site. Thanks.
I love green tomato chutney, so good to see this here. It looks delicious and apt with any meal for me.
Ah this is just great. The wife’s going to love this, she was just moaning about the tomatoes not ripening. Thanks Lin.