Our travels and other stuff

We had masses of green tomatoes this year. Becs made jam, and I made some green tomato chutney. Can’t remember where I got the recipe from but this tastes amazing!

Ingredients
2.25kg (ish) green tomatoes
500g onions
25g salt
250g raisins
250g sultanas
25g fresh ginger
4 red chillies
500g demerara sugar
500ml pickling vinegar

1. Wash and finely chop the tomatoes, cutting out the hard bit where the stalk joins. Peel and finely chop the onions.
2. Place the two together in a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and leave for at least an hour; ideally overnight.
3. Bring vinegar and sugar to the boil.
4. Roughly chop the raisins and sultanas.
5. Add tomatoes and onion mix, with the raisins and sultanas. Put in the ginger (just as a big lump - I put it in straight from the freezer where I keep ginger) and the chillies (whole is fine - you will fish them out later).
6. Bringback to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for an hour or so with the lid off.
7. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Leave in the fridge for at least a few weeks for the taste to develop.

Great with cheese!

This is another Lebanese-style dish that I’ve been making for a few years but not got around to posting. Even if you don’t like aubergines, you’ll like this as the cooking removes the chewy texture you tend to associate with aubergines.

I really like it cold the day after, as the flavours come out even more. Perfect with pitta, hummous, tabbouleh.

Ingredients:

• 2 large aubergines, firm skinned as you can get
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
• 2in fresh root ginger, grated (I keep the ginger in the freezer; it’s easy to grate from frozen)
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• Chilli powder or half a red chilli, chopped
• 6 tbsp clear honey
• Juice of a lemon
• 1/4 pint hot water
• Olive oil, salt

Peel and then slice the aubergines into 1cm (ish) slices. Salt and grill (in batches if necessary) until very brown on both sides. Don’t worry if they char a bit - it adds to the flavour.

In a big frying pan, flash fry the garlic for 30seconds in olive oil. Add the aubergines (again, in batches if necessary), cumin, ginger, water, honey, lemon juice and chilli (if required). Tip: mix the honey, water, lemon, ginger and cumin whilst the aubergines are cooking. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 10mins. If you are doing batches, extract the first batch from the sauce to a serving dish, and then add the next batch. The sauce should end up being like a thin gravy in consistency - add more hot water if required.

This recipe was inspired by Claudia Roden’s Tamarind and Saffron cookbook (highly recommended).