Me and the old hubs had an argument yesterday. I was not best pleased. In fact, I was furious, and despite him saying that we should make up, I was NOT ready to let it go. I instead did the wife thing, banging a few pots and pans together in the kitchen whilst he tried to watch Youtube.

Then I made eggplant chutney.

My husband hates eggplant. I try to get him to like it and he'll eat it if it's on the plate but does so very, very reluctantly, and always makes noises of discontent. My son's the same. I don't get it. I just LOVE it. I could eat baba ghanoush every day. My brother in law made an amazing eggplant chutney and I devoured it in two days - with rice, with curry, on cheese toasties. So I decided to make it from my excess eggplant.

My brother in law made it out of those little purple ones, but I had big ones and a desire to eat them. I chopped up all three for the chutney. Damn the instructions. I'm not very good at recipes. I tend to not follow them, though I did a reasonable job of [this recipe] (https://thespiceadventuress.com/2016/05/18/spicy-aubergine-chutney/)and just compensated for the amount of eggplant I had. Chat GPT is very good at adjusting proportions if you'd like to make it easy on yourself!

It's a very easy recipe and doesn't take as long as say a tomato chutney. I cooked it for a little longer than what the recipe said as it tasted a bit vinegary, and whilst I didn't use the chilli powder, I did use the cayenne so it tasted quite spicey to start with. However, by the time it all cooked down and was in jars, it was just perfect.

Here's the recipe from The Spice Adventuress - trust me, it really isn't as spicey as the ingredients make out. I actually added a little more tomato paste and a tablespoon of sweet paprika and it worked nicely.

Ingredients

450 gm baby aubergines
1 medium red onion; finely chopped
3/4 tbsp tomato paste
220 ml apple cider vinegar
250 gm raw brown sugar
60 gms sultanas/raisins
½ tsp chilli flakes
½ tsp cayenne pepper/hot chilli powder optional
1 cinnamon bark
1 tsp Nigella/onion seeds
1 ½ tsp freshly grated ginger
Salt to season

Instructions

Wash the aubergines and pat dry. Slice the aubergines and place in a heavy bottomed pan along with the onions and salt. Also add the tomato paste and stir well to combine.
Cook for a minute or two and then add the vinegar and sugar; mix well and then add the sultanas, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, ginger and Nigella seeds. Stir well and cook on medium heat till the sugar has almost dissolved. Turn the heat up and bring to boil.

Reduce the heat to the lowest possible, cover the pan and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Open the pan and continue to cook on low heat stirring occasionally so that the mixture does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. The chutney is ready when it has turned thick and sticky; also taste and make sure that the vinegar has been absorbed well or it will taste acidic.

Remove the cinnamon stick and allow to cool well. Ladle into sterilized jars with tight lids. Refrigerate.

The Revenge

For dinner, I made halloumi rice - basically sauteed veggies with a splash of tamari and half a block of cubed halloumi tossed through with black rice. It's a crowd favourite and we eat it at least once a week. I put a HUGE dollop of chutney on Jamie's plate.

'What's this, apple chutney?' he asked.

'No' I said tersely, and he was too scared to say anything else. He finished off the rice and all the chutney.

'This chutney's really delicious' he offered again, finishing off the last bit. 'What is it again?'

'Eggplant!' I said, unable to stop myself giggling.

Muuuuahhha hahahahahah. Revenge is sweeet eggplant chutney indeed.

With Love,

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