Ch-Ch-Ch-Chutney

I'm kind of into chutneys.

It started innocently enough, as all predilections for preserves do, with a turkey meat loaf recipe from The Good Housekeeping Cookbook that called for Mango Chutney. This turkey meatloaf ended up being so delicious we have it fairly often in my house. And most of the thanks is to the aforementioned chutney.

I was at a dinner party last fall where the hostess served goat cheese with a cranberry chutney on top. I ask you, WHAT is more festive than that?

And I myself dabbled in chutney's last year and made an Apple-Onion Chutney to serve with ham. It came out great, but a little too sweet. And I knew there were better chutneys out there for me.

So last weekend when Adam picked up some ham steaks and asked if we could have them this week, I thought that would be a great opportunity to find a better apple chutney recipe that will carry me through the fall season.

And find it I did. Thanks to Elise and her fabulous Simply Recipes food blog.

Apple Chutney

2 large tart cooking apples (such as Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp grated orange peel
1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice <--(I didn't have this, and used 1/4 tsp cloves and 1/4 tsp nutmeg)

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat like so:


Stir well. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 50 minutes. Uncover and simmer over low heat for a few minutes more to cook off excess liquid.



MMmmmmmm.



Makes about 2 cups. Let it cool a bit before serving and then you can cover the leftovers and refrigerate for a few weeks. I served mine with ham steaks



And it was the perfect accompaniment! The hint of orange worked well with the hint of ginger and the red wine vinegar made it less super sweet than the one I made last year (which used cider vinegar and apple cider). It really jazzed up a somewhat run of the mill weeknight dinner.

It would be good on roast chicken and pork as well and I suspect AMAZING over a terrine of fat free cream cheese as a delicious autumn dip.