Green Tomato Chutney - two versions.

Lovely green tomatoes - crying out for chutney, who am I to refuse.

Take some fresh onions straight from the ground, red and white.

Pick some lovely bright green and beautiful tomatoes, and you are ready to go.


I am having a go at two different recipes this time, one a sweeter chutney and one an Indian inspired one, and in the spirit of being organised, instead of trying to read two recipes at the same time and scrambling about for ingredients whilst things stick to the bottom of the pan, I am preparing everything in advance then setting to the cooking.

Professional eh?


Recipe 1 - Green tomato and Red Onion Relish


900g tomatoes
350g red onion
90g raisins
250g light muscovado sugar or cane sugar
1 hot red chili
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons brown mustard seeds
300ml cider vinegar

Combine the spices together, pour everything into a pan, pour over the vinegar, stir to ensure all the sugar dissolves then leave to simmer for about an hour.

Recipe 2 - Indian Green Tomato Chutney


4 cups of chopped green tomatoes
1 green pepper
2 apples, peeled, cored and cubed
1 hot pepper chopped finely
1 white onion
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger root
zest and juice of one lemon
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon tumeric

These are my coriander seeds harvested and dried next to the Rayburn - ready for just such a recipe.

Combine the spices together.

Throw everything in a pan, stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer for an hour.

As I sit here writing this at the kitchen table the room is filled with the wonderful aroma of chutney cooking.

Making my stomach grumble.

Have to wait 3 months for the chutnety to mature, it will be ready just in time for Christmas.

Spoon the mixture out into sterilised jars (wash jars well then put in a warm oven for 10 minutes, boil the lids for a couple of minutes), wear heat proof gloves to handle the jars and seal the lids on tightly.  Stand upside down on the lid for a few minutes to create a good seal, turn back over and wait for the lids to pop down before storing in a cool dark place for the next 3 months.

Couple of days to catch up on here...

... and they centre around the wedding yesterday.

First I had to finish making the gift - which now that it has been given can be revealed as a photo album assembled by me from some handmade paper and cardboard.

Forgot the photo but here are the instructions:

In addition having once again run out of all purpose cards had to make one at the last minute.

Then having had the fashion police dictate my outfit on the day, as we were the witnesses I though it might be appropriate to jazz up my dress with a matching hair fascinator.  Cue a last minute rummage through the boxes of assorted 'stuff' to find some feathers, then some beads then a hair clip to attach them too.

I am pleased with the result though.

Some purple quills, stuck down to a fluffy purple feather horizontally at the base, the beads strung onto a short bit of wire with a dab of glue to hold them in place, then the ends wedged into some polysterene from some packaging waste, and a snip of the purple fluffy feather added at the base to hide the white polysterence, then the quills hot glue gunned to a hair clip and the bead wires added on top.


Right - just 337 photos to sort through now to get a nice commemorative album together, in the meantime, here is a witty ditty...


I'm off to stuff tomatoes
If I wasn't stuffing 'matoes
Where would I be -
Well, I'd be stuffing marrows, see?




Or to be more accurate - patty pan squashes - no need to guess what's for dinner tonight?


I stuffed my tomatoes and the patty pan with the same mix:-

about 250g of pork mince,
a tablespoon of garlic,
couple of inches of chorizio sausage,
handful of fresh basil leaves,
ground black pepper
and the innards of  5 large tomatoes scooped out with a spoon.

Whizz everything up in a food processor or chop finely and stir well together in a bowl.

I sliced my patty pans thinly having scooped out the seeds, lay the empty tomatoes on top, fill with the mix and cover with the top of the tomatoes, then I poured in 1.5 litres of chicken stock to 2 patty pan squashes and threw it in the gas oven for 45 minutes on gas mark 6.

The stuffed patty pan was sat in 500ml of chicken stock on a bed of patty pan squash slices and cooked at 180°C for 1 hour.

Day 4 - Stuffed Tomatoes and Ras El Hanout Rice

It was actually dry today so I managed to get some long over due gardening done.

I weeded the greenhouse, and around the outside perimeter too, then transplanted some grown on tomato plants, my two not very happy looking aubergines, and my sprightly pepper plants.  I am so glad we have the greenhouse, it has proved it's value and was well worth the effort of hunting it down in the UK and bringing it with us, even though we did stress over the poly getting damaged before it was erected.

I also managed to plant out my spinach, my purple sprouting boroccoli, and my broad beans.  I did make a start on the weeding, but found that the hunger pangs drove me inside before the storm did.

Tonight's offering is actually a family favourite, another one pot dish (I am such a lazy cook).

Whilst generally I find supermarkets to be akin to the outer rings of hell, I do enjoy specialist shops, and one of my favourites is the North African supermarket in Clermont Ferrand.  This little shop of treasures has all things weird and wonderful, some larder staples and a good range of herbs and spices, one of which is a prepared Ras El Hanout mix for rice.

I have tried to make my own mix, but it can be so difficult to find uncommon herbs and spices in France that it is a false economy to make your own especially as at a bare minimum it needs at least 12 ingredients.

For my stuffed tomatoes then you need some good sized ripe tomatoes, for a main course I serve 2 per person, just 1 for a starter.

Cut the top off and scoop out the centre into a bowl and chop finely, add some minced meat, not much, you only need about 150g for 4 decent sized tomatoes and preferably a drier mince like beef or chicken, add salt, pepper, a chopped garlic clove and a generous dash of paprika and mix together.

Spoon the mixture back into the tomato, top with a slice of mozzarella, and put the tomato lid back on.

Place the stuffed tomatoes in a shallow oven proof dish.

Into the dish add 2 heaped tablespoons of basmatic rice per person, and a teaspoon of Ras El Hanout spice mix per serving of rice, then pour over boiling water until the rice is completely covered and the water level is at least 2 cm above the level of the rice.  Try to use a shallow dish, so that the water does not get deep enough to enter into the suffed tomatoes but sits sort of half way up them.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour covered at 200°C, then uncover and cook for a further 15 minutes.  If your dish is deeper you may need to check halfway through for liquid levels for the rice.

We ate our dinner on our laps in front of the TV, watching Shrek (again), and yet another storm rolled in, and now it is raining again.

Recipe for Ras el Hanout
.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

I teaspoon turmeic

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves