Mango chutney

I make no claims to the authenticity of this recipe - but I can lay claim to its deliciousness and it's just as good with a goat's cheese as it is with a Goan curry.

In this part of the world we are blessed with a fabulous collection of farm shops and local food producers, but there is a dearth of the "ethnic" shops that make city shopping so much fun.
There being no local mango growers in Shropshire, I was obliged to turn to Sainsburys  where I got this fantasitic mango box, containing 8 perfect mangoes.

4 have been kept in the fruit bowl waiting for them to ripen and turn into honeyed balls of  juiciness and 4 have been converted into homemade mango chutney.

The only thing I will say about this is that traditionally chutneys were made to preserve food and make it last - this doesn't happen to this in our house.

It's great to eat straight away and I have absolutely no idea if it improves with age - we have yet to be patient enough to find out.

Ingredients

4 green (under-ripe) mangoes

2 tsp salt

¼ pt malt vinegar

¼ pt distilled malt vinegar

5 oz sugar

½" ginger

10 cardamom pods

2 small dried chillis

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fenugreek seeds

1 tsp nigella seeds

Peel and chop the mangoes and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle over the salt, cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 24 hours.

Drain and rinse the mangoes.
Place the vinegar, sugar and finely chopped ginger in a casserole dish or large pan.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes.
Add the mangoes and nigella seeds.  tie all the other spices into a muslin bag and throw that it in with the mangoes.

Cook gently for about 20 - 30 minutes until the mangoes are soft and pulpy and the vinegar has virtually disappeared.

Taste and add more sugar, if desired.

Pour into a hot sterilised jar and seal.

Now - a note about seasoning the cast iron casserole: if you buy one of our casseroles, you will receive a note explaining that you should season it if your first dish contains a lot of acidic ingredients.  Obviously vinegar is an acid - acetic acid to be precise, so this may not be the best dish to christen your casserole with.

Acetic acid /əˈsiːtɨk/, systematically named ethanoic acid /ˌɛθəˈnoʊɨk/, is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH₃COOH (also written as CH₃CO₂H or C₂H₄O₂). It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also calledglacial acetic acid. Vinegar is roughly 3 %-9 % acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component of vinegar apart from water.

However, I have been using my casserole for over 4 years now and this is what it looked like when I cleaned out the chutney - so you need have no fears about any lasting damage!!

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