Ingredients:
- 250g of Prunes
- 4 Large Granny Smiths Apples
- 1 Brown Onion
- 375g of Brown Sugar
- Table Salt 70g
- 900ml of Malt Vinegar (eg Sarsons or as long as its the brown vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon of Ground Ginger
- 1/2 a teaspoon of Allspice or Mixed Spice
- 1/2 a teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
- 1/4 of a teaspoon Fresh Nutmeg
- 3 Cloves of Garlic
Utensils
- Large Pan
- 4 500g jars with lids
- hand/stick blender
- knife/cutting board
- grater
- ladle/funnel to help with bottling
- measuring jug
- Scales
Warnings!
This recipe will make your whole flat smell of malt vinegar which will not make you very popular with the family/flatmates so keep the kitchen door shut and open all the windows. Hot sauces with a high content of sugar are really nasty burning hazards dont get it on your skin. Use fresh nutmeg and a grater it is worth it over pre ground nutmeg.
Instructions.
Cut the apples into quarters then core them removing the pips and hard internal structure then roughly chop add to pan. Roughly chop the dried prunes and onion then add to the pan, finely chop or crush the garlic and add this to the pan. Then add rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil with the lid on. Simmer for aprox 10 mins until the fruits are tender. Remove the pan sauce from the heat then use the stick blender to blitz it till there are no lumps it needs to be a smooth sauce. You now need to put the pan back on the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 mins to reduce it down further as we are not using thickening agents this is to your preference how long you cook the sauce for. The sauce will thicken slightly once it cools, but we will want to fill up our hopefully recycled 500g jars before it cools to use the heat of the sauce to hopefully seal the jars for storage. If you dont know how this works I would recommend a look at a few youtube video’s on the subject of canning. If you seal the jars correctly you can store them in a cool dark place for a month or two, but once opened I’d keep the jars in the fridge, even though with the salt and acid from the vinegar this is a preserve you arnt using factory canning procedures. You can use the sauce immediatly but this sauce will improve with age over the next few weeks.
Hopefully you have a product that tastes like Brown sauce from the eighties before they replaced ingredients makeing it a tomato based sauce and using high fructose corn syrup to add sweetness. The cost is about the same as buying bottles of brown sauce but the effort IMHO is worth it.
I hope you enjoy!
tothebreach 