Easy pear and caramelised onion chutney
Get the board out, your favourite cheese and crackers, and tuck into this best chutney for cheese recipe. A delicious accompaniment to a pork steak, or a slice of pork pie. Whatever you feel like doing with it, this chutney has you covered.
A brief spread of history
Chutneys were brought to Europe in the late 1600s with the arrival of preserved foods to Britain from India by The East India Company. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of flavours and forms, and traditionally, Indians would have them with every meal, alongside their curries. One thing I enjoy alongside our own British cuisine, is Indian food. It is so delicious, and satisfying, and my local takeaway knows me by name, I am in there that often.
A common variant in Anglo-Indian cuisine uses a tart fruit such as sharp apples, rhubarb or damson pickle made milder by an equal weight of sugar. In Indian chutneys, jaggery sugar is used, but in Britain, we are more likely to use brown, or demerara sugar.
Vinegar was added to the recipe for English-style chutney that traditionally aims to give a longer shelf life so that autumn fruit can be preserved for use throughout the year or to be sold as a commercial product.
In Western cuisine, chutney is often eaten with hard cheese or with cold meats, typically in cold pub lunches like the traditional ploughman’s lunch.
Recipe Recap
- Remove the pear and sultanas and you have yourself a caramelised onion chutney.
- Try a different fruit, like apple.
- Allow the vinegar and sugar to thicken and combine into the chutney before you stop cooking it. You don’t want any liquid moving about in the bottom.
- Sterilise your jars prior to using with boiling water from the kettle for 10 minutes.
- For best flavour, allow it to rest in the fridge overnight before you eat it.
We hope you enjoy the recipe…
Pear and Caramelised Onion Chutney
Ingredients
- 4 Large Onions Peeled and thinly sliced
- 4 Ripe Pears Peeled, cored and diced into small chunks.
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 55 g Light Brown Sugar
- 60 ml Balsamic Vinegar
- 35 g Sultanas
- Salt and Pepper.
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil into a large saucepan on a medium-low heat.
- Add the onions and pear, and stir occasionally until they are soft and caramelised – Around 30/40 minutes.
- In the last 10 minutes, add the sultanas, and stir through.
- Then add the vinegar and sugar and stir through until the mixture has thickened and the liquid has all come together in a chutney appearance.
- Taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper.
- Allow to cool completely.
- Sterilise your jam jar and lid by filling them with boiling kettle water and leave to sit for 10 minutes. Empty and dry with a paper kitchen towel. Or allow to dry naturally but this will take much longer.
- Put into the fridge and allow the flavours to develop better before tucking into it, although it tastes nice right away!