This Carrot and Date Chutney is an incredibly tasty chutney that goes well with just about anything. It’s as good with Indian curries as it is with roast pork and crackling.
Let the flavours meld in the jar for a few months before sampling, and you will end up with a rich, complex blend of flavours.
This recipe makes a lot, so you may wish to cut it in half.
The recipe
If you wish to adjust batch size, do the math first on paper.
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 10 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 15 minutes
Carrot and date chutney
Yield: 10 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Ingredients
- 500 g carrot (peeled, grated. 4 cups / about 1 lb. Measurements after prep.)
- 450 g dates (pitted, chopped. 1 ½ cups / 1 lb. Measurements after prep.)
- 350 g onions (finely chopped. 2 cups / ¾ lb. Measurements after prep.)
- 2 hot peppers (small, finely chopped)
- 3 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
- 3 tablespoons ginger (fresh, finely chopped)
- 500 g apple (fresh, grated. 3 cups / 17 oz. Measurements after prep.)
- 400 ml malt vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 1 ½ cups / 13 oz)
- 500 ml water (2 cups / 16 oz)
- 550 g sugar (white. 2 ½ cups / 20 oz) OR 3 teaspoons liquid stevia
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- cheesecloth
- 1 stick cinnamon (10 cm / 4 inch)
- 2 tablespoons mustard seed
- 2 teaspoons cloves (whole)
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice (bottled. 50 ml)
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste (or ketchup)
- 1 ½ tablespoons salt (optional)
Instructions
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Prep the carrot, set aside and keep separate.
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Prep the dates, onion, peppers, garlic, ginger, ginger and apples, putting them in a large bowl or pot. Stir in the malt vinegar, set aside.
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Mix the water, sugar, and cayenne pepper together in a large pot.
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Take a piece of cheesecloth, and make a spice bag by tying the cinnamon stick, mustard seed and cloves in the cheesecloth. Add to pot.
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Add the grated carrot, bring to a boil.
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Add the prepared date mixture. Bring back to a boil, then lower to a simmer and simmer uncovered until thickish. About 40 minutes, until it mounds nicely on a spoon. Stir frequently, about every 5 to 10 minutes to prevent scorching.
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Add the lemon juice, tomato paste, and the salt. Simmer about 5 minutes.
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Discard spice bag.
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Ladle into quarter-litre (½ US pint / 8 oz) jars.
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Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
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Debubble, adjust headspace.
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Wipe jar rims.
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Put lids on.
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Process in a water bath or steam canner.
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Process jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
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Best after two months of jar time.
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
Recipe notes
- There’s a fair bit of prep in this, and then the simmering is quite lengthy, so plan making this for when you have a good window of time. You could prep the veg the day before and store in tubs in the fridge.
- For the ginger, you can use 3 tablespoons of ginger from a tube as a bit of a time-saver.
- Instead of the salt, you can use a non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub. We have found Herbamare Sodium-Free performs well in that regard.
- You can reduce the sugar, or use the same volume amount of granulated Splenda®, or use 3 teaspoons of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia.
- Tip! You can use two food-safe rubber bands to hold the cheesecloth spice bag together.
- Instead of two small red peppers, you could use ½ to 1 teaspoon of dried chile flake.
- An old-fashioned hand grater, for those that still have one, proved actually to be the fastest and most efficient way to grate the carrot (we compared with a food processor, and a Moulinex electric grater.)
- Leaving the carrot grated can give the chutney a bit of a stringy texture. You might wish to consider taking a large French knife and giving the grated pile of carrot a few quick chops, just to make the chutney more chunky rather than stringy.
- The tomato paste is added at the very end to help prevent the sugars in the tomato paste from scorching at the bottom of the pot.
- Yield will vary depending on how much you thicken it by simmering. Do not add any thickener. And remember that it will thicken a fair bit upon cooling.
Recipe source
Source: Golden Gossip Chutney. In: Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013. Page 83.
Modifications made:
- Increased carrot and onion by a tidge (60 g total) to round up measurements to an even number; ditto for the vinegar (25 ml).
- Increased cayenne pepper a bit.
- Added sugar and salt sub suggestions.
Safety Check
With a pH of 3.60, well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6, Bernardin has delivered us another safe, tasty, high-quality recipe.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 54 calories, 138 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 28 calories, 6 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 tablespoon, 0 points. 2 to 4 tablespoons, 1 point
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
Mayavin
Where come the apples?
Healthy Canning
Good catch, thanks. Added. They go in along with the ginger.