Mrs Ball's secret recipe, Pickled Garlic .......

I can't tell you which one of my lovely South African friends put this recipe for Mrs Ball's Chutney on the Facebook and well I just had to give it a go. But then I just had to improve on it didn't I, well Mrs. Balls I hope you don't mind too much cause we like it hot, hmmmm maybe not this hot. The devil was sitting on my shoulder when I was chopping up the extra few chillis and those raisans. Maybe we'd just better stick to the original next time.

Edward Ball, Mrs. Ball’s grandson scaled down this original recipe to make 18 bottles of (mild) chutney.

612 g dried peaches
238 g dried apricots
3 litres brown wine vinegar
2 1/2 kg white sugar
500 g onions
120 g salt
75 g cayenne pepper
1 to 2 litres of brown wine vinegar for soaking
About 2 litres of brown wine vinegar for mixing

The fruit should be left in the soaking vinegar overnight, then cooked in the same vinegar until soft. Drain. Put the fruit through a mill. Add the sugar (dissolved) and onions (minced) and cook in a pot with the brown wine vinegar. The amount of vinegar depends on the consistency: it should not be too runny or too thick, but have the same consistency as the end product you find in the bottle. Add spices and cook for one to two hours. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent burning. Sterlise your bottles and spoon in the mixture. That's it - you've got Mrs Ball's Chutney.



To make the chutney hot, add 75 g chopped chillies.
To make peach chutney, omit the apricots and use 850 g dried peaches instead.

It might sound like a bit of effort making your own chutney but then again, this will set me up for at least one year's supply of chutney. Taking into account how much just one bottle of chutney cost here in Australia, it might just be worthwile trying it out ...
Only we'll be on fire for the next year lol


Pickled Garlic (fresh from my garden, peeled and chilled for a few days now, man I got to make this one tonight) only got about 1 1/2 cups of garlic so will adjust the recipe to suit.

6 cups fresh garlic cloves
3 cups white distilled vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Peel cloves; if large, cut in half lengthwise. In a non-reactive saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar and salt. Bring to boiling and stir until sugar dissolves. Drop garlic into mixture and cook, uncovered, over high heat 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; let cool. Store in tightly covered jar in refrigerator for 3 months or longer.



And just as if there's not enough going on here atm, I made some semi sundried Tomatoes in the dehydrator and added vegatable oil instead of olive this time, so far so good

Holy Moses, where's the milk? not good to lick the spoon ...