Plum tomato chutney

This is not a jam recipe, but a chutney recipe, which in my opinion also fits into this month theme of jam. My good friends in Horsens have a garden full of plum trees, which gives them a surplus being freely shared amongs their friends. So I recently receive a portion of 3-4 kg plums, which I either enjoy fresh or make more storable by in this case making chutney.


I have found this recipe on plum tomato chutney, where I have a few modifications, so it fitted to the available ingredients in my kichen.

Plum tomato chutney:

• 600 g dark plums - destoned
• 4 red cherry tomatoes - diced
• 4 yelloe cherry tomatoes - diced
• 5 cm ginger - grated
• 2 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
• 1 red onion - medium-fine chopped
• 1½ dl sugar
• 5 tablespoons apple vinegar
• ½ teaspoon balcamico
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 white & 5 black pepper corns

1. Add all the ingredients in a medium cooking pot.
2. Let everything boil gentle for 1 hour without lid.
3. Pout the chutney into glasses, which have been prepared by boiling water.
4. Let the chutney stored for 1-2 weeks, before you start using it.

Apple juice of home-grown Philippa apples

This is another recipe, which I have located in the IRMA magazine called "Krydderiet", issue 3 August 2014. I am living the part of Denmark, where we have no access to IRMA, which is primarily located in the area of Copenhagen, as it is more price expensive Danish supermarket chain like M&S in UK.

Anyway, my mother lives in the Copenhagen area, so she picks up the IRMA magazine for me, as she knows I am keening on trying out new food recipes.

As I noticed, that the harvested Philippa apples were getting wrinkled skin, I decided to turn them into apple juice, as a way of preserving their wonderful taste for some more time instead of panic eating my way through these apples or feeding them to the blackbirds living around my garden.

There is no need to throw out the boiled apple pieces, as they can be used as mashed apple (æblemos), either eaten with milk, yogurt or turned in the classic Danish apple cake. You can adjust the sweetness in this apple mash by stirring in sugar, before storing it cold/frozen.

Apple juice a la IRMA: - approx 1 liter

• 1 l water
• 200 g sugar
• 2 organic lemons - zest and juice
• 2 sticks of cinnamon
• 1000 g apple - peeled, cored and cut into boat shape

1. Put water, lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar into a large cooking pot.
2. Add in cinnamon stick and apple pieces into the water.
3. Cook up this "apple soup", and let it boil gently for 15 minutes with the lid on the cooking pot.
4. Remove the cooking pot from the heat, and let the content inside the cooking pot cool down,
5. Pour everything through a sieve into a large bowl.
6. Remove the cinnamon sticks and save the mashed apples for later use as apple compote. Adjust the sweetness level by adding in extra sugar in this apple mash.
7. If you want a more clear apple juice, sieve the juice one more time, perhaps through a coffee filter.
8. Prepare the storage bottles by filling them with boiling water. Another thing you can do to increase shelf-life of the apple juice is to store the juice cold in the refrigerator or place them in the freezer.

Tomato ketchup

My tomato plants have not been a big success this year, as they have been struggling with potato blight coming from my potato plants. Therefore I will next year be placing my tomatoes in the part of my garden facing, whereas the potatoes will be placed in their pots in the Northern part of my garden.

Any way one of the tomato plants has been full of smaller cherry tomatoes, so I decided to make my own tomato ketchup every using produce from my kitchen garden in form of tomatoes, chilies and apple using this Politiken´s tomato ketchup recipe as starting point.

It was actually the first time for me to make my own tomato ketchup. I decided to adjust the viscosity of this ketchup of adding in some pectin. If you do this, you need to blend eveerything after addition, so you ensure, that the pectin is dispersed homogenous.

Before addition of the dark brown sugar, the colour of the tomato ketcup was quiet light red. After addition of the brown sugar, the colour became much more dark red !!! Interesting colour changes.


Tomato ketchup a la Politiken:

• 500 grams of fresh and ripe tomatoes
• 1 small apple
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• /2 teaspoon of ground allspice
• 125 g dark brown sugar
• 100 g apple cider vingear 
• pectin - optional for viscosity adjustments.

1. Roughly chop all the ingredients.
2. Put them into a small cooking pot together with vinegar and spices.
3. Boil everything until the apple pieces are soft.
4. Blend everything together using a blender.
5. Taste the tomato ketchup, Adjust to desired by adding the dark brown sugar little by little. Vinegar can also be used for taste adjustment.
6. Pour the tomato ketchup into jam glasses, which have been prepared by addition of boiling water in advance.
7. Store cold.

Apple mash/compote with vanilla

Apple mash or apple compote is something, which is very easy to make. The thing taking time making apple compote is actually the removal of core and peel from the apples followed by dicing the apple slices.

You can adjust the sweetness of the apple mash/compote by adding less or more sugar depending on the desired sweetness for the final use.

You can use this apple mash/compote for so many different purpose such as:

• eat it as it is with cold milk on top (a favourite of mine)
• Tartes aux Pommes
• Classic Danish apple cake
• Apple trifle

Apple mash/compote with vanilla:

• 575 g apples - after removal of core and peel and diced
• 100-150 g water
• 100 g sugar
• ½ vanilla pod - pod and vanilla corn 

1. Clean the apples, remove the core, peel and damages part of the apple. Cut the apple into smaller pieces.
2. Place the apple pieces into the cooking pot.
3. Add water.
4. Remove the corn from the vanilla pod.
5. Add vanilla corn and vanilla pod into the cooking pot
6. Heat up and cook until the apple pieces are soft, between 10-15 minutes depending on the firmness/softness of the apples.
7. Remove the vanilla pod from the mash.
8. Mash the apples.
9. Add the sugar and stir well. 
10. Cool down.

Pickled plums in liquorice a la Isabella´s Countryliv

This is the sixth recipe in just as many days with focus on PLUMS.

I found this recipe here in the Isabella's Countryliv issue 5/2012, and as it a combination of plums and liquorice, I found it to be a recipe to be tested out in my little kitchen during my plum "cook-out" session last week, where I turned "tons" of plums into many different things.

Pickled plums in liquorice a la Isabella's Countryliv:

• 500 g plums - cleans, stone removed and diced
• 100 g water
• 100 g dark Muscovadosugar
• ½ teaspoon raw liquorice powder
• Potassium sorbat - optional

1. Add water, Muscovadosugar and liquorice powder to a cooking pot and bring it to the boiling point.
2. Lets the plums boil in the sugar syrup for 10 minutes.
3. Add boiling water to the storage glass.
4. Empty the glass for the hot water.
5. Pour plums and sugar syrup into the storage glass.
6. Serve these pickled plums together with cheese - firm dry cheese types.

Plum-tomato compote

Getting to an end of the plum season I decided to use the last plums from a picking session in some friends garden making two version of plum compote.

I have found this recipe on plum-tomato compote in a newspaper: http://smagokologi.dk/Opskrift_Blommer.asp, which is based on recipe by Kille Enna´s cooking book called SMAG (TASTE). Looking at the ingredients in the recipe, I found it so interesting, that I wanted to test this recipe.

The smell, while the compote was cooking in my kitchen, was just wonderful, fantastic, lovely :-)) The smell was so much better compared this plum compote.

Served this plum compote together with cheese or cold meat.

Plum-tomato compote: a la Kille Enna´s SMAG

• 300 g plums - without stone
• 225 g tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 200 g sugar

• 2 teaspoons of balsamico
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger - grated
• 1/4 vanilla pod - both pod and vanilla corn
• 1/4 chili - finely chopped

1. Remove the stone of the plum, and cut them into smaller pieces.
2. Cut the tomato into smaller pieces
3. Add all the ingredients into a cooking pot.
4. Heat it up and let it cook for 15-20 minutes.
5. Add the pectin gelling powder and let it cook for 2 minutes.
6. Prepare the storage glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made compote, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your compote. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards. There is not enough sugar in this compote to preserve it.
7. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.

Plum compote

This is the first version of plum compote, I have been making, using inspiration from Dansuker on plum compote http://www.dansukker.dk/dk/Tema/ÅRET_RUNDT/Sommer/Pluk_blommer.aspx.

I am "in love" with the flavour of star anise, it reminds me about Pernod and Christmas. So if you see me sniffing like a cat in the kitchen, it is because I smelling to the wonderful flavour of spices and herbs with a fantastic smell.

Served the plum compote together with cheese or cold meat.

Plum compote:

• 24 plums - without stone
• 1 red pepper fruit
• 1 red onion

• 6 star anise
• 3 dl light sugar syrup
• 3 teaspoon lemon juice

1. Remove the stone of the plum, and cut them into smaller pieces using a mini chopper.
2. Cut the red pepper fruit and the red onion into small pieces using a mini chopper.
3. Add all the ingredients into a cooking pot.
4. Heat it up and let it cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add the pectin gelling powder and let it cook for 2 minutes.

6. Prepare the storage glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made compote, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your compote. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards. There is not enough sugar in this compote to preserve it.
7. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.