September 6, 2010
Apricot Chutney and Apricot Jam
Our neighbor John has apricot trees and has way more apricots than he knows what to do with. He asked my husband to come and pick some for us and said husband came back with three ice cream buckets overflowing with apricots. I’m not a huge apricot fan, mostly because they aren’t very sweet. What to do with all of those apricots, then.
Can them, that’s what.
I decided to make apricot chutney, using the recipe I have for plum chutney. I quadrupled it and added an extra cup of sugar to compensate for the lack of natural sweetness in the apricots.
Apricot Chutney
Ingredients
4 cups light brown sugar
5 cups white sugar
2 cups white vinegar
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8 tsp salt
8 tsp mustard seed
8 large cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup sliced onion
2 cups candied ginger, sliced
16 cups apricots, pitted and sliced
Directions
Combine sugars and vinegar. Bring to a boil.
Add rest, and simmer until thickened (One to two hours)
**I am generous with my measurements of mustard seed, ginger, garlic and onion.
(16 cups of apricots yielded me 6 500ml jars (6 pints).)
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I also decided to make jam because (I like toast, and) John is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I’m pretty sure that chutney isn’t his thing and we wanted to give him some of what we made with his apricots.
Apricot Jam
Ingredients
16 cups apricots, pitted and sliced (You can peel them if you want to, but I didn’t).
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
Directions
Combine apricots, sugar, and lemon juice in a large pot. Bring to boil, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves.
Cook until thick (20-25 minutes) and keep stirring to prevent sticking or burning. Remove pot from heat and skim foam from jam. Pour into prepared jars.
Enjoy!
