Mango Chutney Is Not Just for Curry Night

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Mango chutney earns its place next to cheese long before it gets near a curry. Sweet, sour and spiced at once, it cuts through fat and salt: cheddar, cold ham, sausage rolls, toasties, roast chicken. Here is what to eat it with and how much to use.

What is actually in the jar

Chutney is fruit simmered down with sugar, vinegar and spice until it thickens and darkens. Mango survives that treatment with its shape intact, so a good jar still has pieces in it and keeps a sour edge under the sugar. Sweetness and acid together cut fat and salt, which is why chutney lands so well on cheese, cold meat and anything baked in pastry.

The mango jar we pack most often is the West Bengal Rifles mango chutney, 270g for $12.95, made by The Regimental Condiment Company. It is chunky rather than smooth, which matters more than it sounds. A smooth chutney slides off a cracker; a chunky one stays where you put it and gives you something to bite.

Cheese first, curry second

Mango chutney and sharp cheddar is the pairing to start with. Put the chutney on the plate rather than on the cheese, so people take the ratio they want. A teaspoon each is plenty on a board.

Blue cheese wants the sweetness more and takes twice as much. Washed rind is where mango chutney beats a fruit paste, because the acid holds its own against the smell. If the cheese is going in the oven, the chutney goes on afterwards: our baked camembert with mango chutney is a whole wheel baked in its box and spooned while it is still molten.

Keep the cracker underneath plain: VPC Crackerthins are $3.49 and deliberately neutral, which is what you want when the chutney is doing the talking.

Cold meat, sandwiches and the pastry problem

Coronation chicken. Two tablespoons of mango chutney, four of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of curry powder and a squeeze of lemon, stirred through shredded cooked chicken. Chop the larger pieces of mango first, or the sandwich falls apart. Still the best use for the last of a roast chicken.

Ham, hot or cold. Chutney sits beside ham the way mustard does, sweeter and less sharp, and a table is better for having both, as we set out in what to serve with Christmas ham. In a sandwich, stir two parts chutney into one part Spitfire hot English mustard and spread it thin.

Sausage rolls, samosas and party pies. Serve the chutney in a small dish beside the pastry, not over it. Anything wet softens pastry within minutes.

Toasted sandwiches. Cheddar, ham and a heaped teaspoon of chutney, spread on the inside face of the top slice. There is enough sugar in it to catch in a hot pan, so keep it off the outside of the bread.

What heat does to it

Warm chutney behaves like a glaze, and the sugar that makes it sticky is also the thing that burns. Add it late.

• Glaze for ham or chicken. Loosen two tablespoons with a tablespoon of water and brush it on for the last 10 to 15 minutes at 180°C. Earlier than that and it darkens past sticky.
• Curry, at the end. A spoonful stirred in during the last minute rounds off a curry that has come out too sharp. If curry night is the main event, the savoury option is the Punjab Battery tomato and apple chutney.
• Yoghurt marinade. Equal parts chutney and plain yoghurt with a squeeze of lemon, over chicken thighs for an hour. Wipe most of it off before they hit the barbecue.
• Dressing. One part chutney, one part vinegar, two parts oil, shaken hard. Good on a raw cabbage slaw beside grilled meat.

Which chutney for which plate

The Regimental chutney shelf is three chutneys deep, in four jars, and they are not interchangeable.

All four sit with the mustards and relishes in our gourmet condiments range.

The 110g jar, and who it is for

The mini is not a sample size, it is the giving size. A chutney gets handed over about as often as it gets cooked with, and the 110g mini jar at $6.95 is the one that goes in a box rather than a fridge door. Buy the 270g for yourself. Buy the mini for someone whose kitchen you have never seen.

Small jars travel better than almost anything else you can send: glass, sealed and indifferent to a warm van in December, which is why they sit so easily inside a Christmas hamper.

Once the jar is open

Into the fridge, and use a clean dry spoon every time. A knife with butter on it is what turns a jar early, not the calendar. Most makers put about 4 to 6 weeks on an opened chutney, and the label on your jar wins. Unopened, it keeps in a cool cupboard until its best before date.

A 270g jar is roughly eighteen generous spoonfuls, which is more cheese boards than it sounds and fewer toasted sandwiches than you would think. Ten seconds in the microwave loosens a stiff chutney enough to brush on as a glaze.

Mango chutney questions we get asked

What do you eat mango chutney with?

Cheese first: sharp cheddar, blue, washed rind and baked camembert. Then ham, cold meat, coronation chicken, toasted sandwiches, sausage rolls and party pies. It also cooks, as a glaze brushed on for the last 15 minutes, stirred into a curry at the end, or shaken into a dressing.

What is the difference between chutney and relish?

Chutney simmers longer with more sugar, vinegar, dried fruit and spice, so it comes out thicker, darker and sweeter. Relish is a shorter cook and a coarser chop, so it stays chunky and tastes brightly of its main vegetable. In a sandwich the two are interchangeable. Beside a strong cheese or a curry, chutney has the sweetness to hold its own. Our guide to what to put tomato relish on covers that side of the shelf.

Does mango chutney need to be refrigerated after opening?

Yes. Refrigerate it once opened and use it within about 4 to 6 weeks, following the label on your jar. Sugar and vinegar do a lot of preserving work, but an open jar left in a warm kitchen turns well before the date suggests.

Start with one jar

Buy the 270g, park it in the fridge door and work down this page: cheese, then a sandwich, then a glaze. If it is empty inside a month, add a mini to the next order and keep that one for giving. The rest of the range sits with The Regimental Condiment Company, next to the mustards and relishes that end up on the same plates.

Shipping is free Australia-wide over $100, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.