We almost never buy nectarines or peaches at the store, no matter how cheap. Regardless of the price, they aren’t worth it. They’re generally crunchy, or mealy, or bruised, and never, ever good. So, we just say no, and move on to something that’ll taste good. This week, though, we came up with the idea of making Nectarine Chutney; something like that, with all the extra spices and flavors, and the long, slow cooking, should be okay using store-bought nectarines. At least, it won’t be too bad.
This recipe for chutney is the same one we use for Pineapple Chutney, which we love, only with nectarines standing in for pineapple. If you’ve made that one, you already know that chutney is one of the simplest condiments to make, and that they’re quite tasty. We don’t even wait until we make an Indian-style dinner to have chutney; we use it like a savory jam on biscuits or bread.
Nectarine Chutney
Ingredients
- 10 coriander seeds
- 6 black peppercorns
- 6 cloves
- 1/2 inch piece cinnamon stick
- 1 Tbs canola oil
- 1 cup diced white onion
- 1 1/2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
- 1 1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
- 5-6 large nectarines cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/2 tsp dried ginger
- 1 small dried chili pepper seeds removed and broken into pieces
- 125 g dark brown sugar (1/2 cup + 2 Tbs)
- 90 g white vinegar (1/3 cup)
Instructions
- Place coriander seeds, peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon stick in a small spice infuser or tie up in a small sachet made from muslin.
- Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally until tender, about 7 minutes. Add mustard seeds, and cook an additional 2 minutes.
- Add nectarines, turmeric, ginger, chili pepper, brown sugar, and vinegar, and bring to a boil. Place sachet in pan so that it's submerged.
- Reduce heat and simmer until thickened, about 1-2 hours.
- Pack in a clean jar and refrigerate.
Ingredient discussion:
Yes, we know that’s a lot of spices, but most are common and easily available. Unfortunately, spices can be expensive, unless you shop at ethnic markets, or, if you’re lucky to have one near by, Penzey’s Spices (they also ship). Then, the spices are often far more reasonably-priced. We do recommend Penzey’s, simply because it’s where we shop, and we like the selection and pricing, no other reason.
Procedure in detail:
Make spice sachet. We used to have a small spherical tea infuser that we used as a spice sachet, but it broke, so we’re going to tell you another way of making a spice sachet. Simply place those spices you don’t want to crunch down on in the middle of a coffee filter, fold it up around the spices, and staple closed. Done. The spices that we recommend putting in the sachet are coriander seeds, black peppercorns, cloves, and the cinnamon stick, but you get to decide.
Fry onions. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and fry, stirring occasionally, until they’re tender, about 7 minutes. Add the mustard seeds and continue to fry until some of them start popping open, not unlike tiny popcorn kernels.
Simmer. Add the nectarines, the spice sachet, brown sugar, vinegar, red pepper, turmeric, and ginger, then stir gently so you don’t break open the spice sachet, and bring to a simmer. Make sure the sachet is submerged in the liquid and reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1-2 hours, or until the nectarines are breaking down and the liquid is quite thick.
Salt and pack. Taste and add salt as needed. Transfer to pint jars, cover tightly, and refrigerate.
We find that the flavors of chutneys meld and develop with a bit of time, but we tried this chutney the same day we made it. We let it chill completely and had it along with biscuits and cheese. It was quite good, not as good as Pineapple Chutney, but good nevertheless. Definitely one of the few good uses for store-bought nectarines. Four stars.
