The courgette glut means that we have many meals with courgettes but, the glut doesn’t last long and everybody needs to spread out their consumption of courgettes. Chutney is one way of storing courgettes and there are many different recipes. This is a very simple one with few ingredients which tastes fine and keeps well. One reason for making it is that, unlike many recipes, it doesn’t have raisins or sultanas in it and, if you don’t like these, its a bonus.
Ingredients
- 1-2kg Courgettes
- 2 Medium Onions
- Garlic Paste (1-2 tsps)
- Ginger Paste (2-3 tsps)
- Cooking Oil
- 2tbsp Salt
- 1tbsp each of Ground Corriander, Ground Cumin, Black Mustard Seeds
- 1tsp turmeric
- 1/4 tsp chilli flakes
- 300 ml Cider Vinegar
- 150g light brown sugar
Method
Wash the courgettes & cut them into chunks (remember these will be the mainstay of your chutney so make sure the chunks are the size you want).
Put in a bowl and sprinkle with salt and leave for a few hours to get rid of some of the water. Then rinse and dry.
Blitz the onions to a paste with the garlic and ginger.
Toast the spices in a dry pan for a while until you can smell them releasing their aroma.
Add some oil to the pan and fry the onion/ginger/garlic mix & cook for around 5 minutes stirring to make sure the mixture doesn’t catch & burn.
Add the vinegar & sugar and warm gently until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the courgettes and simmer gently for 40 minutes or so until it has thickened.
Finally spoon the mixture into pre-warmed jars making sure there are no air pocket.
So that’s it simple, tasty and another way of using up the courgettes (particularly the big ones you missed). When it was cooked, we blitzed it a bit with a stick blender to make it less lumpy (partly because we hadn’t cut the courgettes up small enough) and that made it better for sandwiches.
It made around 2 1/2 500g kilner jars.
