Ballydehob Food Group

This is one of the many delights I discovered on the island of La Gomera.   There are many versions of it, and I’m still in the experimentation stage.

This is how I made it today:  I took six sizeable organic chillies, about ten large garlic cloves, two or three tablespoons of organic olive oil from Puglia, a  freshly grated Grenadan nutmeg & mace (pounded), organic lemon & lime juice* (one each), Malvern salt, and freshly-ground organic pepper.

I chopped up the chillies and garlic and then whizzed up the whole lot in the food processor, then bottled it in a clean jar and refrigerated it.

Mojo is a delicious relish that goes with almost any savoury dish or snack. You can stir it  into vegetable and meat dishes just before serving to add a bit of a kick.

* I pasteurised the citrus juice to extend shelf life.

John Lynch 7th June 2010

2. Making Chutney

The word “chutney” originally came from the Indian subcontinent, being found in a number of languages there, both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian.   In this part of the world it has always described any of a plethora of spicy sauces or condiments used to augment a main vegetable/pulse/grain dish.

By some time during the seventeenth century Europeans had begun getting a taste for some or these preparations and were shipping them as luxury foodstuffs back home to Britain, France, Portugal and the Netherlands.   Their high prices naturally resulted in European imitations, the ingredients, methods of preparation and the character of “chutney” evolved and diverged from the original models and in England chutney developed into a home craft, another way of preserving fruit.   The tradition also developed in a number of British colonies, particularly in the Caribbean and Southern U.S..

The English version of chutney consists basically of fruit and/or vegetables boiled (usually with onions) in vinegar, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with spices.

The sugar and vinegar have a preservative action and the acidic environment makes it impossible for pathogens such as the spores of Clostridium botulinum to survive.

The general method for chutney is:

1. Chop the fruit and/or vegetables, and and cook slowly in vinegar in a stainless steel pot, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time.
2. When they’re soft, add sugar and spices, stir in and continue cooking very slowly until the chutney thickens.
3. Bottle the chutney in sterilized jars.   If using the metal lids which came with the jars, ensure that they are plastic-coated on the inside or use an insert, otherwise you may get a reaction between the acid and the metal.
4. Label and date.   Store for months or years in a dry, dark place.
5. Use in sandwiches, with cheese or cold meats, with curries, sausages, potatoes…  almost anything savoury in fact.

Once chutney has been made in this way and bottled in sterilized jars, it will keep for many years; indeed, like a fine wine, it’s best opened after a period of ageing as this allows time for the multiplicity of flavours to meld.   Having said that, fresh chutney can also be tasty, and if you have half a jar left over after bottling, don’t hesitate to use it straightaway!

I sometimes peruse chutney recipes for ideas, and would certainly recommend this practice for beginners, but there’s no need to be bound by instructions which dictate so much of such a type of sugar, a teaspoon of this spice and half a teaspoon of that:  just use what you have, experiment boldly and throw in what your intuition tells you to!   I find that most recipes specify very small amounts of spices, which can make for bland chutneys.   I tend to lob in about half a cereal bowl full of a mixture of spices per batch of chutney (large saucepan).

As for sugar, I’d usually use somewhere between 250g and 750g of soft brown or muscovado but for a red tomato chutney I’d probably use white sugar so as to try to preserve the colour of the tomatoes to some extent.   Some or all of the sugar could also be replaced with honey or dried fruit.

I nearly always use organic cyder vinegar, but malt vinegar is more traditional., and wine vinegar can also be used.   It’s best to use less, rather than more, vinegar at the start of cooking as you can always add more if necessary:  some fruits, e.g. tomatoes, will release a lot of water so it’s a good idea to let much of this boil off before adding more vinegar.

One final tip is that apples can be used to bulk out any chutney if you haven’t enough of your intended main ingredient.   As long as you cut out any bad or bruised parts and core them, there’s no need to peel them as the peel will soften completely during the long slow cooking.   The same goes for tomatoes.

If you follow these general guidelines you’re very unlikely to create something unpalatable, and very likely to produce something very tasty!

Suggested ingredients:

Tomatoes, green tomatoes, onions, apples, courgettes, marrow, runner beans, bananas, dates, pears, celery, lemons, beetroot…

Spices: Coriander seeds, cummin, turmeric, ginger, allspice, cajun seasoning, fenugreek powder, asafoetida, celery seeds, peppercorns, pink peppercorns, ginger, garlic, chillies, cayenne, juniper berries, mustard seeds, kalonji…

John Lynch 2nd October 2010