Apple Fig Chutney

Use your seasonal fruits in tasty ways! Made of apples and fresh figs with savory spices, apple fig chutney is a tangy condiment that is easy to cook on the stove and can be water bath processed for shelf stability.

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I like to combine produce that ripens at the same time. Tomatoes and basil, for one example. Corn and zucchini, for another. Apples and figs are an area I'm slowly exploring. Last year I shared my Fresh Fig and Apple Salad. Today I've updated an old post with new video, an easier to read recipe card, and the same terrific recipe.


This recipe is based off of Marisa McClellan's Apple Pear Chutney recipe in her book Food in Jars, shown below. I changed it up a bit since I had fresh figs on offer. How did I get the fresh figs, you ask? Read on for my earlier thoughts on foraging fruit!

Foraging Fruit

When I first read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Amazon affiliate link) we lived near a wooded park.  My daughter and I spent the summer picking wild raspberries, blackberries, and lots of marionberries.  I'd walk past a flowering quince (I looked it up because I was curious what sort of low flowering bush would produce small, pear-shaped fruit) but I never picked the fruit.


As much as I enjoyed the foraging part--brambles aside--the quality of the prolific marionberries was less than desirable.  They grew all over the woods because they were mostly seed, and the critters who ate that slightly fruit-wrapped seed carried it into ever-expanding territory.


The following season I decreased the foraging part of our diet and turned to local Pick Your Own places, where the berries are grown for flavor.  We'd gorge while the berries were ripe, and freeze the rest to get us through until the next berry season.

After we moved to Ohio and started walking the sidewalks of our new city I thought my foraging days were over. We bought a house and planted peach trees--and made these peaches and cream muffins, blueberry bushes, raspberry canes and a strawberry patch.

Then I saw the fig tree. In an alley. Alone unemployed in Greenland between a garage and a utility pole. [I knew it was a fig tree because I'd enjoyed my first fresh figs from the massive tree at my last CSA in Virginia, Blenheim Organic Gardens.] All spring and summer I'd walk the dog down the alley, eyeing the progress of the figs.

Before the figs ripened, though, I walked in another direction and discovered plums. Falling next to the street. Ripe for the foraging. Perfect for Plum and Whey-soaked muffins. Then a friend from work invited my daughter and I to pick peaches from her heavily laden tree. [Yes, my girl was envious of that tree.]


All of a sudden the foraging opportunities seemed pretty darn interesting.


In another direction I spotted a lovely pear tree--in a backyard. I can't forage in someone's backyard! However, I'm not a fool, so when I happened to walk past one fall morning when the pear tree owner was outside picking up dropped fruit, I asked (over the commotion of our combined dogs' conversation) if he had any pears to spare. Bingo!  That nice guy filled up a bag for me!


I dropped off a fresh loaf of sourdough bread to his wife the next day to maintain the local fruit karma.

Now you know how I came in possession of the first figs I used in this recipe. I've since sourced them fresh from Trader Joes but remain on the lookout for fresh figs at the farmer's markets. Their window of opportunity is small and shouldn't be missed.

For more recipes using apples, please see my Apple Recipes Collection. For more recipes using figs, please see my Fig Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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Apple Fig Chutney
By Kirsten Madaus

Apple fig chutney is a tangy condiment made from fresh apples, fresh figs, and savory spices. This cooks easily on the stove and can be water bath processed for shelf stability.

Prep time: 00:15
Cook time: 00:45
Total time: 01:00

Yield: about 3 cups
Ingredients:
8 fresh brown figs, quartered (6 ounces/170 grams by weight)
2 apples, cored and chopped (10 ounces/280 grams by weight)
¾ cup raisin date blend (about ½ cup raisins plus ¼ cup chopped dates) (3 ½ ounces/100 grams)
½ cup chopped white onion (2 ⅞ ounces/80 grams)
¼ lemon, seeded and finely chopped
⅝ cup apple cider vinegar (5 ½ ounces/150 ml by volume)
1 cup brown sugar (7 ounces/200 grams by weight)
1½ teaspoons mustard seed
1 whole clove
½ cinnamon stick
1 large clove garlic or roasted garlic (here's how I roast and store my garlic crop) 
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan (I used my 3 quart).

Bring to a simmer over medium high heat, then reduce heat to medium low and cook until thickened. This took the better part of an hour for me, checking and stirring every 10 minutes initially then every 5 minutes as it got thicker.

Once the chutney is finished remove the cinnamon stick and clove--I did this by feel, with the back of my spoon.

You can eat the chutney right away, store it in the refrigerator for several weeks, or boiling water bath can it for pantry stability.

I canned mine by spooning it into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace, and processing in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. If you're new to canning, you can find detailed canning instructions at the National Center for Home Food Preservation and of course Food in Jars.

We use this with Indian food, such as my Slow Cooker Green Tomato Curry and my Ground Beef and Mustard Greens Curry, as well as on grilled cheese sandwiches like my Grilled Cheese with Cheddar, Havarti, and Apple Fig Chutney.