red and green tomato chutney

i’ve just removed the tomato plants from our garden – the courgette plant went last weekend. as a result i have an abundance of red, orange and green cherry tomatoes which i’m going to need to find ways to use up over the coming week or so.

first stop is nigel slater’s red and green tomato chutney. a friend made this last year and i loved it so, despite my usual fear of chutney (all that boiling vinegar making the house smell bad) and the fact that i have several jars of other (homemade and gifted) chutney in the cupboard, i got stuck in.

it’s actually quite a quick and easy recipe – well worth a try if you have green tomatoes to use up. and even better if you have a mix of colours so you don’t need to buy any red ones (the mix of ripe and unripe fruit creates a lovely sour-sweet flavour).

nigel slater’s mixed tomato chutney (makes c3-4 jars)

900g tomatoes, mixed green and red

350g onions

90g raisins

250g light muscovado sugar

1 medium sized, hot red chilli

1 tsp salt

2 tsp yellow mustard seeds

300ml white wine vinegar

halve the tomatoes. put the green fruit together with the peeled and roughly chopped onions, into a large stainless- steel or enamelled pan with the raisins, sugar, chilli, salt, mustard seeds and vinegar. bring to the boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer for an hour, giving the occasional stir to reduce the risk of the chutney sticking. after about 25 minutes cooking, add the ripe tomatoes and continue to simmer. then spoon into sterilized jars and seal.