Preserve du jour - Roasted Blackboy Peach Chutney

One rainy Sunday - four different preserves

At this time of year it is a race against nature to capture the late-ripening fruit in jars. I was glad it was too wet to garden today as it made me feel better about staying inside and making tomato and herb puree (9 jars), lemon chilli chutney (2 jars), grape jelly (5 small jars), and roasted blackboy peach chutney (5 jars).

This last one is my own invention - driven by the necessity of finding a more interesting way of preserving the huge amount of fruit from my three trees.
I guessed that roasting the peaches would intensify the peach flavour of the chutney, and this does seem to be the case.

Two lucky readers of this blog (one in Auckland, one in Hamilton - you know who you are) are going to get a jar to test for themselves when I visit them next week, so perhaps they will give an independent assessment of how tasty it is.

ROASTED BLACKBOY PEACH CHUTNEY

Ingredients

enough blackboy peach halves to cover a large roasting pan in one layer

(around 40)

2 onions, peeled and chopped

200g brown sugar

250 ml malt vinegar

1 cinnamon stick

10 whole cloves

½ t ground cinnamon

½ t chilli powder

½ t salt

Method

Heat the oven to 240 C.

Skin the blackboy peaches (by putting a few at a time in a shallow bowl,

pouring boiling water over them and letting them stand for a few minutes

until the skins are easily loosened and slipped off when nicked with a sharp knife).

Halve the peaches, remove the stones, and place them in one layer in a large roasting pan.

Mix the chopped onions in with the peaches.

Roast the peaches and onions at a high heat for 30-40 minutes,

until there is no longer any juice in the pan and the peaches have shrunk.

Weigh the roasted peach/onion mix - there should be around 1 kg.

Put the peach/onion mix into a large, heavy-bottomed pot.

For every 900-1100 grams of peach/onion mix, add the sugar, vinegar and spices

in the amounts given above.

Adjust them up or down if the peach/onion mix weight is significantly heavier or lighter.

Bring the pot to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer slowly, stirring often,

until the mixture is thick (about 30 minutes).

Remove the cinnamon stick and bottle the chutney in hot, sterilised glass jars.

Seal at once.