Mango chutney

Mr Pickings and I are fast eaters so when we go to a restaurant we are usually in and out in about an hour. When we do eat out with friends, they often ask me to pick the restaurant.  This has turned out to be a good idea usually as the few times various friends have done the choosing, I have ended up with food poisoning. Co-incidence you may say.  A sinister plot I say!

Once, vegetarian friends chose a Himalayan cafe where the food was not only tasteless and disgusting, but it gave me the worst bout of food poisoning ever.  I could not believe that vegetable curry could make you so ill!   Anyway Mr Pickings loves a good curry and he loves a good chutney to go with it. So every year about this time, I make up a big batch of mango chutney as they are cheaper than in early summer. I add chillies from a friend's garden (kept in the freezer since last winter), and bio-dynamic garlic from Patrice Newell's farm.  (I buy a box in January and break up the heads into cloves, then freeze them to have over the coming year).

We were up in the Sunshine coast hinterland last week where mangoes were plentiful and organic.  Strangely enough Mr Pickings and I do not eat mangoes on their own but enjoy them cooked up into a chutney.  I use a recipe from an old Margaret Fulton book- you know, one of those little books that have her name on but really have little else to do with her.  We saw the same books in the UK years ago with the name of whoever was the cook du jour.  So this little book of Indian Cooking has been very useful over the years (it also has a fab recipe for home-made yoghurt).

Ingredients:

1 kg of mangoes- I have used ripe or a bit green- either seems to work

2 cups sugar

2.5 cups of vinegar

5 cm piece of ginger- grated

4 cloves garlic-chopped finely

2-4 chillies- depending on taste

1-2 tbs of yellow and/or brown mustard seeds

1 tbs sea salt

1 cup sultanas

Method:

peel and dice the mangoes

place the sugar and vinegar in a medium saucepan, bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes

throw the finely chopped garlic and chillies, and grated ginger into the pan and simmer for another 10 minutes

then add the mango and the rest of the ingredients into the mix and simmer away for at least 25 minutes, stirring now and then.  I have found it can take up to 40 minutes to get it nice and thick.

Spoon it into hot sterilised jars and store for up to a year in the fridge.

ready to cook-those mangoes look luscious

aromatics ready for the chop

mangoes being chopped

aromatics ready to be cast to their doom in a boiling pan

all go!

finished!

looking good!