Chinese Plum Sauce – Mark 2

Had my second attempt at making Chinese Plum Sauce after a 4 year gap. It’s taken that long between decent wild plum harvests!

The first time I made up a recipe, but this time I thought I’d trust the web. I turned up a recipe by Thane Prince, but unfortunately I didn’t bother to get rice wine vinegar and used pickling vinegar instead. The sauce is only 20 minutes old, but I do have to say it tastes more like a chutney as it has considerably more vinegar than my original recipe. Hopefully it will all mellow out as I store it away for a couple of months.

1kg plums, any colour
500ml rice wine vinegar
300g white onions
4 large cloves of garlic
5cm ginger
125ml soy sauce
500g sugar
3 star anise
1/2tsp hot chilli flakes

Stone and halve the plums. Add all the other ingredients (onions & garlic peeled and roughly chopped, ginger roughly chopped) to a large heavy based saucepan. Simmer for 20 minutes until the onions are soft. Remove the star anise and blend with a stick blender. Return the heat and simmer until it is a loose ketchup consistency. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal with sterilised lids immediately.

As with most chutneys, leave for at least 2 months before using, so that the vinegar mellows. Unopened this will keep for a few years.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry
Instagram: sunhillmakesbakes

Richly Spiced Plum Chutney

I opted for a chutney with the second half of my donated plums, having made a Spiced Plum Jam the BBC Good Food’s recipe took my fancy.  And for once, I pretty much followed it to the letter apart from not having any mustard seeds.

Richly spiced plum chutney
Ingredients
1kg plums, halved, stoned and finely chopped
3 onions, finely chopped 100g dried cranberries or raisins, roughly chopped with an oiled knife
1 tbsp finely grated ginger
1 tbsp black mustard seed
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
400ml red wine vinegar
500g light muscovado sugar

Method
1. Put all the ingredients, except the sugar, into a large pan and stir well. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 10 mins, until the plums are tender.

2. Stir in the sugar plus 2 tsp salt and keep stirring until it has dissolved. Boil the chutney for 20-30 mins, uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent it catching on the bottom, until it is thick and pulpy.

3. Pot into sterilised jars (see Know-how, below), seal, label and store for at least 2 weeks before eating. Will keep for up to 6 months in a cool dark place.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry
Instagram: sunhillmakesbakes

Spiced Plum Jam

Joining a Facebook conversation about the amount of fruit falling unused on the pavements around our town, I ended up with 5lbs of free plums on my doorstep last week. I made Spiced Plum Chutney with half, and was so taken with the flavour I decided to make a sweet spiced jam with the other half.
tesco.com has a very simple recipe and the jam has a lovely autumny/wintery spice taste to it.

900g stoned and chopped plums
900g granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp butter (to clarify)

Place a saucer in the freezer.

Put the stoned and chopped plums in a wide stainless steel pan or preserving pan with 150ml water.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the fruit is soft.  As I had frozen my plums, they were soft enough to skip this step.

Wash and sterilise your jars and lids as soon as the jam goes on.  I reuse the ‘pop up’ style lids as these help seal the jam and allow you to keep it in a dark place for 1+ years. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse well and drain.  Place the jars in a cold oven, let it heat up to 140C and then leave for 10 minutes at this heat or until your ready to pot up.  Place the lids in a pan with boiling water and boil for 10 minutes to sterilise.

Add the sugar and stir over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved.  Stir in the cinnamon and ginger and bring to a rolling boil.  Boil rapidly for 10 minutes without stirring.  With a spoon, pour a little onto the chilled saucer.  After a few seconds push the jam with your finger.  If it wrinkles, it is ready.  If not, return to the boil for another 5 minutes and test again, stirring from time to time.  It took about 20 minutes when I made this jam this afternoon, and I did have to stir it to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan especially towards the end of cooking.

When ready remove from the heat.  Stir in the butter which should make any scum ‘vanish’.  Take your jars out of the oven and fill right to the brim.  Seal immediately with your sterilised lids and leave to cool.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Homemade Chinese Plum Sauce

Last week I collected 1.5kg of small yellow plums from a heavily laden tree at the edge of our village. I don’t know what they are – wild plums I guess. They are the size of large cherries, or damsons, but yellow. And not as sweet as Victoria plums but not uncomfortably tart either.

Most of my haul is now sitting in a bucket stewing in water en route to becoming Plum Port, but I thought I’d try a Chinese style plum sauce with the remainder.

As the recipe is being made up as I go I thought it best to write it down in case it is success!

500g plums, weighed out before pitting
1/2 small onion, roughly chopped
1 large garlic clove, roughly chopped
2cm ginger, roughly chopped
2 tbsp shaoshing rice wine
1/8th tsp hot chilli flakes
200g brown sugar

I have bottled this in between writing. It is tart, sweet, and spicy in that order. I would be curious to follow a jam recipe next time ie 1:1 fruit to sugar and then add just the chilli and maybe the garlic.