Branston Pickle very nearly

I usually write about my preserving exploits on my other blog, but I thought I would post this recipe here!  Its was Tuesday, a sunny and lovely day, one of the few for a long time, so what possessed me to spend the day in the kitchen chopping and stirring, when I could have waited for later in the week, when we are having cold and rainy days.....

Well, I had researched my recipe, and collected several from the Internet, and prepared my shopping list and had gone out on Monday to buy all the vegetables, so I wanted to get on with it. 

There are so many ingredients that I shall have to use to smallest of prints, and the largest of labels for my jars.

The pickle is not quite as dark as the original, but I do not mind.  I didn't want to add food colouring/liquid browning, so instead I used extra dark organic raisins, dark muscovado sugar, and some concentrated tamarind paste.  I used only organic cider vinegar, not the Malt Vinegar given in most of the recipes

Be ready to do lots of very fine chopping!

Since this is not Branston Pickle I have called it

Notsnarb Pickle, 
(Branston back to front!)

Ingredients

1 small parsnip
1 1/2 small swede
1 Large brown onion
1 Large red onion
2 courgettes
250g carrots
1  cauliflower
1 large apple, peeled, cored
2 lemons, juice only
3/4 of a large jar of gherkins chopped small
4 cloves garlic
1 cup organic raisins
1 heaped tbsp tamarind concentrate
250g dark muscovado sugar
550ml cider vinegar
1 tbs worcestershire sauce
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp cornflour

Method

Everything is chopped up really small, I used a cube of branston chutney to gauge the size, I made mine on the small size as most of the pickle is destined to fill cheese or cold meat sandwiches.  Its less likely to ooze out onto pristine business shirts!

Put everything except the cornflour, into a large pan, stir well, and bring slowly to the boil, cover and simmer gently until the cubes of swede are cooked but still with some bite, so it depends on how small the cubes were.  After half an hour I uncovered the pan, and cooked for another 3/4 of an hour.

At that stage I removed about four tbsps of the juices, and used this to mix the the cornflour, everything was then heated together for about 5 minutes. The chutney then went into hot jars which had been very well washed and sterilised, then covered straight away with vinegar proof lids.

The jars are going to be STASHED away for a couple of months at least for the flavours to blend.