Roasted Feijoa Chutney
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Ingredients

  • 3 kg feijoas
  • 1 kg red onions
  • 5 large sweet lemons
  • 8 large green chillies
  • 2 kg white sugar
  • 5 tsp sea salt
  • 300 ml cider vinegar
  • 1 cinnamon quill
  • 6 green cardamom pods *
  • 6 black cardamom pods *
  • 2 tsp dried chilli flakes
  • * You can get these from Indian spice suppliers
  • 6½ lb feijoas
  • 2 lb red onions
  • 5 large sweet lemons
  • 8 large green chillies
  • 4½ lb white sugar
  • 5 tsp sea salt
  • 1¼ cups cider vinegar
  • 1 cinnamon quill
  • 6 green cardamom pods *
  • 6 black cardamom pods *
  • 2 tsp dried chilli flakes
  • * You can get these from Indian spice suppliers

Roasted Feijoa Chutney

This is closely based on a recipe by Peter Gordon who had the brilliant idea of cooking chutney in a roasting dish in the oven rather than on the stove. A friend gave me a jar she had made and when I told her how sensationally good it was she kindly wrote out the recipe for me. I have altered it slightly to use whole feijoas so I don't have to discard piles of the green skins. I put the fruit through the mincer and because it is cooked so slowly the skins just dissolve into the chutney. The texture is different from the original recipe, but the flavour and the wonderful cooking aromas are the same. It is a beautiful russet brown colour, it smells good, tastes superb and best of all, it uses up lots of feijoas. This is a very large recipe, which fills about a dozen jars, so you may want to make a smaller batch.

Getting ready

  1. The night before you will cook the chutney:
  2. Put the unpeeled feijoas through the mincer, or whiz them in batches in the food processor. You don't want a complete puree, just a lumpy sludge.
  3. Do the same with the red onions and the whole lemons. (It's a good idea to cut the lemons into quarters and flick out any pips first.) If you like a lumpier texture, you could just chop everything fairly finely with a knife, and I sometimes do that with a few of the feijoas and one lemon.
  4. Remove the stems from the green chillies, cut them in half and flick out the seeds. (If you do this under a running cold tap you will avoid chilli burns on your fingers.)
  5. Put the prepared fruit, onions and chillies into a large bowl with the salt and vinegar and pour over the sugar. Cover the bowl and leave on the bench overnight.

Cooking the chutney

  1. Preheat the oven to 356º F / 180º C.
  2. Give the mixture in the bowl a good stir, add the cinnamon, cardamoms and the chillies and pour it carefully into a roasting dish. The dish can be quite full since the mixture will reduce in volume as it cooks.
  3. Put it in the oven and cook for 2 -3 hours. Give it a stir with a wooden spoon every half hour or so. It is cooked when the mixture is a reddish brown and most of the moisture has evaporated.
  4. Put it into clean jars, seal and leave for at least a week before eating. This allows the flavours to mellow a little. It will keep for at least a year in a cool, dark place. Makes about 16 cups / 4 litres of chutney.