Help - my 10 jars of tomato chutney are too runny.

alirosie

my first attempt at chutney - followed the instructions and it was too runny. put it in sterilised jars anyway as i wasn't sure if it thickened over time (yes - i know - i'm a real novice!). I've now read all these replies and it seems that it doesn't and i need to re-boil. My question is - can i open the jars up and re-boil even though its been in the jars for 24 hours or have i ruined them?

i seriously hope this message makes sense - feeling poorly and i think i had 3 rounds with a prize fighter and didn't know it

(p.s. it was a little runny when it went in the jars - but i just looked at it this morning and its not really watery at all - moves just a little when i tip it to the side - wondering about leaving it). oh dear - paranoia!! please no-one tell me about the test you can do to see if its thick enough because i've just read about that!! lol

Primrose

You'll be able to save your chutney if you put it back into the pan and boil it again until most of the liquid has evaporated. I think many jam & chutney recipes are incomplete in that they don't tell you to leave the lid off so that the liquid can boil off and evaporate which is an essential part of thickening up the mixture. Wash out your jars and resterilise them. I've found thatoOne of the secrets of a good chutney is having a good quantity of fruit and not being too overgenerous with the vinegar initially as the fruit will exude quite a lot of liquid from itself as it's being boiled down and too much liquid can make it over-sloppy.

wendye1960

Thank you all so much for this. I'm another that has just tried making chutney for the first time - hadn't realised and cooked it with the lid on so it is all too runny. I will also put it back in the pan and re-simmer. It's years since I've made any jam so had forgotten about that. There was loads of liquid left but as it had been on for 3 hours I used a slotted spoon to strain out the veg I'll tip it all back into a pan and boil it off and try again.

Wendy

artichoke

hi all

well my pear and ginger chutney has had over 5 hour in the simmering oven but is still too runny... so having read all this i will leave it in there until i go to bed...

and if still runny will take out overnight and out back in simmering oven in morning... i will let you know if this works

art

Primrose

Artichoke - if your chutney is still to runny, I'd advise trying to give it a good fast high boil to get some of that liquid evaporating, rather than a gentle slow simmer. If it's a bulk quantity, gentle simmering may not be sufficiently effective. Just watch out you don't burn the bottom of your pan.

stevemid

Not sure where this goes but hopefully moderator will know.
I had the same runny chutney problem, although here in Australia we are calling this "green tomato pickle." My mother-in-law has made this forever and as she is now 85 and a LARGE following of hangers on have been clamoring for her pickle, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Here is her grandmother's recipe.
2 lbs green tomatos
2 lbs onion
2 bottles of vinegar (note on recipe: 1 3/4 bottle, these would be litre bottles)
1 1/2 desert spoon Tumeric
3 desert spoon dry Mustard
3 T plain flour
4 C sugar
Chop the tomatoes and onions; sprinkle with 1T salt & mix well
Stand the tomatoes and onions overnight and drain in the morning
Put tomatoes and onions in saucepan with 1 1/2 bottles of vinegar
Mix the dry ingredients together and add the remaining vinegar to this mixture
Add this to the saucepan and boil for 10 minutes
Put in jars with cling wrap to prevent the vinegar from rusting the tops

As I say, this turned out very runny. The longer I simmered it, the more runny it got. It seemed to me that the fruit just kept liquifying the longer I simmered. My solution was this:

I took another batch of salted, drained overnight pickle/onion mixture (about a pound.) Mixed with 4T of flour. Added 1C of simmering runny pickle to this and mixed well. Added another cup of runny pickle to this and again mixed well. Return this to the saucepan with the original batch. It thickened nicely. Stopped cooking after 10 minutes and let to cool. Tastes nice on a bit of cold meat or a snag hot off the barbie.

Nicki23

My chutney problem is a little bit different to the problems already discussed. I made chutney last week and it was taking a very long time to thicken and smelt very 'vinegary'. So I drain some vinegar out. No the chutney is very sticky and very thick. Is there anything I can do to save it. Thanks in advance.