Onion chutney disaster - help?!

MoneySavingSapphire_:D

Last night I made onion chutney following a recipie on here than basically involved heating red onions very slowly with butter and brown sugar for half an hour (and I also added a splash of balsamic vinegar in the last 5 mins). Well, it was beautiful - I had it on granary bread with veggie sauasages and spinach and it was like a heaven a bit.
However, I put the left over stuff in a clean jar in the fridge, but when I've come to i this morning (not to have it for breakfast, honest) its turned into onions sat in solid yellow butter
Is there anyway to stop this happening? Did it cool too fast in the fridge? (I was sure it was cool before I put it in...)
I've tried mixing it but that doesn't work. Could I heat it up again?
Thanks!

teapot2

Hi MSS, sounds like what happened is just that the butter solidified in the fridge - that will happen with butter, sometimes with cooking you find that when cold/refrigerated stuff seperates out into layers ie butter/oil etc. I see no reason why you couldn't heat it again slowly and give it a stir while the butter melts and it should be as deleicious if not more so now the flavours will have mingled. I suspect you wouldn't be able to remix it until you heat it up.

Well done, sounds delicious
Teapot

MoneySavingSapphire_:D

Thanks, I think I'll try heating it up for lunch! If I wanted to make some for my nan (which I do, because her tomato chutney is beautiful and I want to give her some of mine in return!), could I make it using oil? Or marge? Or use butter but let it cool at room temperature? But would it keep then? Or still solidify? Sorry for questions!!!!

teapot2

Hi, well am no expert on these matters but i suspect that the butter will solidify when cold maybe not at room temperature but certainly in the fridge. Presumably it must have been quite a lot of butter? You could try using oil but maybe the butter is used for flavour?

Will have a think on it and look at a few recipes

teapot2

Ok, had a look in a few books and also the recipe you used in the mega index. I think there are two types of chutney, one you might make to go with food you are eating for that meal - any left over will keep ok. Then there's chutney you would make to keep longer and bottle which prob has quite a bit of vinegar etc in it and possibly more ingredients but is still quite easy to make [hope this is making sense?]

If you want to make some for a pressie might be better to use one without butter in it [or very little butter] to avoid the 'problem' you experienced - its just a question of how it looks I guess and you might want to eat the chutney cold so you wouldn't want to heat it up to melt the butter.

There are loads of chutney recipes on the BBC food website, https://www.bbc.co.uk/food just do a search for 'chutney'. I think its a lovely idea to make some for your gran, good luck with it

Teapot

MoneySavingSapphire_:D

Cheers Teapot, I'll have a look! :beer: