Every Christmas I’m given chutney, and I still have four barely used jars. What to do with them before the next lot arrive?
Christine, Oxford
This sounds like a job for Claire Dinhut, author of The Condiment Book, who also goes by the moniker Condiment Claire. She would approach this meal by meal, starting with breakfast. “It might not seem so obvious,” she says, “but I put Branston pickle on my avocado toast. If you think about it, you often add acidity, which is usually lemon, but chutney is punchy and has that same tang, as well as a bit of texture.” Regardless of what jars Christine has hanging around, Dinhut would also consider the breakfast bap: “Whether it’s spicy mango, peach, chilli or tomato chutney, that would be so delicious with an egg yolk.”
Roger Pizey, executive head of pastry at Fortnum & Mason, is no stranger to Christine’s chutney conundrum: “Sometimes we’ve got so much left over that I’m at my wit’s end knowing what to do with it.” And, often, the best solution is the simplest, which is why Pizey often spoons a good dollop of, say, fig and fennel chutney into a golden, gooey toastie. “You can get a lot of chutney in there with a few generous layers of Ogleshield [a raclette-style cheese], which takes the tart, acidic flavour of chutney really well.”
