Courgette Chutney to inspire Chef Enrico Fiorentini
My neighbours continue to pepper me with their home-grown vegetables and not wanting to offend anyone, despite harvesting a few of my own veggies, I keep accepting baskets of salad and most recently courgettes (zucchine). Fantastic you might think but the bottom line is that there are still only two mouths to feed in my household and I’m struggling with a courgette overload.
Then, out of the blue, I was contacted by Chef Enrico Fiorentini who I’ve met on a few occassions at “Per tutti i gusti” events and to help celebrate the launch of his new blog he asked a host of bloggers to dedicate a recipe to him and this gave me the perfect opportunity to try something new and find a and use for all these courgettes and so I decided on my first array into Chutney.
I found a couple of good recipes by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and the BBC but not having all the necessary ingredients decided the only thing for it was to get creative and part-follow both recipes and part-invent based on the contents of my fridge and garden. So here is my…
Courgette Chutney with Mint, Lemon and Cumin.
Ingredients: 700g Courgettes, 4 medium tomatoes, 2 large Granny Smith apples (peeled), 4 mild green chillies, 2 cloves garlic, 300ml white wine vinegar, 180g soft brown sugar, 1 onion, 1tsp mixed spice, 2 tbsp cumin seeds, 20 peppercorns, grated rind and juice from 2 lemons, pinch salt, lots and lots of fresh mint leaves.
Preparation: 30 mins + 2 hours cooking
1. Wash and dice all the fruit and vegetables and place together with all the other ingredients in a large heavy based pan.
2. Slowly bring to the boil and then simmer for c. 2 hours without a lid until the mix turns thick and chutney coloured.
3. If during the 2 hours the mixture looks a little dry then add in a splash of water as required.
4. At the end of the 2 hours leave to cool for c. 20 minutes before potting up. You want to pot whilst the chutney is warm but not boiling.
5. It’s important to sterilise the jars before potting up and I googled various methods and opted for the quick and easy option of microwaving the jars with a splash of water in them for a couple of minutes.
6. Pot up and leave the chutney to settle for 15 minutes before putting the lids on.
7. Finally put the lids on and add some labels. The chutney now needs to rest for a minimum of 2 weeks but preferably for 2 months so I’m just going to have to wait to see if my combination of courgette, lemon, mint and cumin works. I’ll let you know after the summer!
Check out Enrico’s new blog for authentic Italy recipes.
