Nectarine Kumquat Habanero Chutney

Nectarine Kumquat Habanero Chutney has the perfect blend of sweet and sharp and spicy. The tart kumquats add an extra bite to the sweet nectarines and the heat of the habaneros complements the dried spices, giving this chutney a distinctly Indian flair.

This week my Sunday Supper group is sharing recipes that save the summer harvest. I love adding peppers, especially habaneros, to sweet condiments. There’s something special about that hit of heat and sweet that goes so perfectly with pork or chicken. I just can’t resist. One day soon I’ll share the recipe for my confit pork belly, shown here, because it’s my favorite thing to eat with nectarine kumquat habanero chutney. But meanwhile, serve it along side grilled chicken breasts or pan-fried pork chops.

Ingredients
12 1/3 oz or 350g kumquats
3 cups or 710ml apple cider vinegar
3 lbs 12 oz or 1700g nectarines
2 tablespoon canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
12 fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon kalonji
4 in or 9cm piece of cinnamon stick
1 cup or 240ml fresh orange juice
2 large, thick thumb-sized pieces fresh ginger
6 cups or 1200g sugar
3-4 habanero peppers – about 38g

Method
Wash your kumquats and remove any stems.  Finely slice them, removing any large green seeds.

Pile them in a bowl and cover them with the vinegar. Push them down into a little if necessary. Cover the bowl with cling film and let marinate for at least one hour or overnight in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to proceed, chop your ginger finely. Mince your fresh habaneros. You can discard the seeds but know that even doing that, this is going to be pretty spicy. Be very careful with the habaneros. I recommend you use gloves. Do not, I repeat, do not touch anything – face, eyes, nose, etc. – before washing your hands very thoroughly with full strength soap, or better yet, an abrasive scouring powder, just in case.

Measure out your spices, putting the mustard seeds in one bowl and the rest of the spices in another.

Seed and thinly slice your nectarines. No need to peel them.



In a large pot, heat the oil and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add in the other spices and give the whole thing a quick stir.

Now add in the chopped ginger and stir again. Pour in the orange juice.

Now add in the kumquats and the vinegar they marinated in. Bring to a low boil and cook for about 10 minutes.

Add in the nectarines, habaneros, the stick of cinnamon and sugar.

Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn the fire down.  Be careful at the beginning because the sugar really makes it bubble up.  You do not want this to boil over!

Cook until the chutney thickens to your desired consistency. Remember that once it cools, it will thicken even more so stop before you can stand a spoon in it or it will be too thick cold. I cooked mine for almost one hour over a low heat. If you are a thermometer using type, I find that jam or chutney will set when cooled if heated to just under 220°F or 105°C.

Turn off the fire and remove the cinnamon stick.

Transfer the boiling chutney to sterilized jars, popping in clean teaspoons to make sure the jars don’t break. Screw the sterilized lids on tightly.  I use the inversion method to seal my jars but experts like Rebecca Lindamood, author of Not Your Mama’s Canning Book does not recommend this. She advocates processing the jars in a boiling water bath or pressure canner.

Enjoy! If you like kumquats, you might also like my spicy tangy sticky kumquat chutney.

Check out all the fabulous recipes our Sunday Supper tastemakers are sharing this week to save the summer harvest. Many thanks to today's host Caroline of Caroline's Cooking and our event manager Renee of Renee's Kitchen Adventures.

Condiments

• Blackberry Lemon Thyme Syrup by Sunday Supper Movement
• Brinjal pickle (Indian eggplant relish/aubergine chutney) by Caroline’s Cooking
• Freezer Mixed Berry Puree by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Ginger Fig Jam by Palatable Pastime
• Herbed Salsa by What Smells So Good?
• Homemade Giardiniera by Curious Cuisiniere
• Homemade Sriracha by Monica’s Table
• Hot Pepper Oil by Feeding Big and more
• Mediterranean Chutney by Wholistic Woman
• Nanny’s 7-Day Sweet Pickles by Grumpy’s Honeybunch
• Nectarine Kumquat Habanero Chutney by Food Lust People Love
• No Pectin Mixed Berry Jam by My Imperfect Kitchen
• Peach Butter by Redhead Baker
• Pear Ginger Jam by Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
• Simple Basil Butter by Momma’s Meals
• Spicy Mango Jam by Family Foodie
• Stove Top Roasted Garlic by Cricket’s Confections
• Tomato and Chili Pepper Jam by Delaware Girl Eats

Main dishes

• Grilled Peach and Burrata Pizza by An Appealing Plan
• Oven Roasted Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce by Renee’s Kitchen Adventures
• Tomato-Zucchini Pesto Flatbread with Chevre and Balsamic Drizzle by The Weekend Gourmet

Sides

• Garden Rice by Basic N Delicious
• Pickled Asian Vegetables by A Mind Full Mom

Snacks

• Homemade Fruit Leather by A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
• Slow Cooker Cinnamon Apple Sauce by Books n’ Cooks

Dessert

• Chocolate Zucchini Banana Muffins by The Bitter Side of Sweet
• Drunken Peaches by Nosh My Way
• Freeze and Bake Blueberry Pie by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• How to Freeze Peaches and Make Peach Sauce by The Freshman Cook
• How to Make Chocolate Zucchini Bread by Asian In America
• Mom’s Zucchini Bread by Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Peach Yogurt Popsicles by Food Done Light
• Summer Fruit Crisp by Pies and Plots
• Summer Fruit Popsicles by Powered By BLING

Beverage

• Berry Shrubs + A Cocktail by Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Pin this Nectarine Kumquat Habanero Chutney!

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Brown Sugar Nectarine Tart #FridayPieDay

Sprinkling fresh nectarines with brown sugar and a little sea salt enhances their summery sweetness in this baked tart that is easy enough to make any day of the week.

Sometimes fresh nectarines can be a disappointment. They smell all nectarine-y in the stores so you take them home with great anticipation of that first juicy bite and the inevitably sweetness dripping down your chin. And then the sadness hits. The nectarines are juicy enough, even somewhat sweet, but they just don’t taste as strongly of nectarine as their aroma promised. That, my friends, is when I figure I have a couple of choices: make jam or tarts. Either will use sugar and heat to concentrate the flavors of the fruit and restore your good temper with deliciousness to share.

This is my contribution for this month's Friday Pie Day! Scroll down to the bottom to see what my fellow baker, Heather, is sharing today.

Ingredients
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, 8 3/4 oz or 250g, thawed – preferably all butter
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 nectarines (about 10 1/2 oz or 300g, whole)
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
Generous pinch fine sea salt
2 teaspoons butter
2 tablespoons apricot (or peach or nectarine) jam

To serve: thick cream or vanilla ice cream - optional

Method
Preheat oven to 425°F or 218°C and line your baking tray with parchment or a silicone baking mat.

Unroll your puff pastry onto the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle a circle in the middle with the cornstarch.

Cut your nectarines in half and remove the pits. Slice the halves thinly.

Starting in the middle of the circle, lay your nectarines slices out, overlapping them slightly. Keep going until the entire circle of cornstarch is covered, using all of the nectarine slices.

Fold the sides of the pastry in about 1/2 an inch or 1cm and sprinkle the tops of the nectarines with brown sugar and the generous pinch of salt.

Now fold the pastry over again to cover about one quarter of the fruit, all the way around.

Dot the top with butter.

Bake in your preheated oven for about minutes or until the pastry is puffed up and golden all over.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Loosen the jam by adding a little water to it and warming it gently in the microwave or in a small pot on the stove.

Brush it on the top of the nectarines when the tart has cooled. I used some homemade caramel apricot lime jam but you can use whatever jam you have open in the refrigerator.

Cut into four equal pieces and serve with thick pouring cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Or perhaps a complementary slice of buttermilk pie. (See Heather's link below!)

Enjoy!

FridayPieDay is the brilliant invention of Heather from girlichef and I am pleased to join her on the last Friday of each month for pie and crust recipes, techniques, tools of the trade, and other inspiration.

This month Heather went traditional southern with a creamy buttermilk pie, and it looks delicious!

For more information and recipes, please check out her #FridayPieDay page!

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Rhubarb Nectarine Puff Pastry Tarts

Many years ago, we lived just south of Paris and were blessed with a large garden, most unusual, even in our neighborhood, because of the way our city block was shaped.  The front garden was wide, about 40 feet across, narrowing down by almost 20 feet by the time you got behind the house to the backyard, a large pie-piece shaped garden with the tip cut off.   In the front, we had all the hazelnuts we could eat, courtesy of the left side neighbor, Madame Coucou, so named by us because she would call to me from her porch, “Cou cou!”  In the back, we had a fabulous sweet cherry tree that produced more cherries than we could possibly use, no matter that we ate them steadily and made jam and pies and cherry bounce.   We gave them away to friends and neighbors.  What I didn’t know until our last year there, was that we also had rhubarb in the front yard.  My in-laws came to visit and pointed it out, all hidden under a large bush, so low to the ground.   How could we have missed it!  Rhubarb is one of our favorite things.  My excitement at the discovery was tinged with sadness for the years of missed crops.

Now every summer we eagerly await rhubarb season, when a few choice stalks can be purchased and pie can be baked.  Often it is apple and rhubarb, but occasionally sweet yellow nectarines also make their irresistible appearance.   Summer means a hot kitchen so cooking the fruit on the stove and quick baking puff pastry lets me crank the oven up and then turn it off rather than baking a whole fruit pie for an hour or more.  You could do this with any seasonal fruit.

Ingredients
3 stalks rhubarb
2 ripe nectarines
3-4 tablespoons vanilla sugar or normal sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Good pinch salt
2 sheets puff pastry (about 8in x 8in or 20cm x 20cm)
1/2 cup or 120ml whipping cream

Method
Preheat to 400°F or 200°C.  Fold your sheets of puff pastry in half and then in half again.

Cut around the square with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors to create a circle – or, honestly, leave it square if you want.  I just think the circles are prettier.  But do trim the edges off all around.  Freshly cut puff pastry puffs up way more successfully.

Use a large round cookie cutter to score a circle in the middle of the puff pastry.  Do not cut all the way through.

Dock the middle of the circles with the tines of a fork.   Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry has puffed up and is golden all over.  Meanwhile, chop the rhubarb into chunks.

Cut the nectarines in half and remove the pits.  Cut in chunks.

Put the fruit in a small pot with the 3 tablespoons sugar and salt.

Cook for about 10 minutes or until the rhubarb is completely softened and the nectarines are cooked.  Taste and add the extra sugar if necessary.  Set aside to cool.

When the puff pastry is done, remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Cut around the scored circle with a sharp pointy knife and then gently press it down, creating a hole for the fruit.  Set aside.

When you are ready to serve, whip the cream and fill the pastry shells with fruit and then top with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Summer Fruit Tart*

We have been invited out to dinner tonight!  (Thanks, Mom!) I offered to bring dessert and since it’ll just be three of us, and I have some fruit in the fridge, a quick puff pastry tart seemed just the thing.

I discovered puff pastry in sheets a few years ago – yeah, maybe I’m slow – and for a while, I experimented with it so often that it seemed almost everything I made had puff pastry as a main ingredient. It is a miracle substance, as happy as a shell or companion for sweet as for savory.  Best of all, it lives in my freezer until I need it and thaws quickly and bakes to a beautiful golden crust just as fast.

Ingredients

Summer fruit – about 1¼ lbs – Pitted if necessary and cut into chunks if bigger than bite-sized. I used two nectarines and one 6 oz punnet of blackberries

1 package of puff pastry containing two sheets

1/4-1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/8 cup of butter (four good slices)

1 tsp of natural vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons of cornstarch

Method

Preheat your oven to 425 °F.  After the pastry has thawed, lay the first piece on a piece of parchment paper in your baking tray. If you don’t have parchment, which, as you can see from the photos, I forgot today, it will cook just as nicely. It will just be harder to get out of the baking pan and into a pretty serving dish.

Pit your fruit and cut it into chunks, if necessary, and sprinkle it with the brown sugar and the cornstarch. If your chosen fruit is really tart, you might want to increase the amount of sugar, hence the variable amount in the ingredients.  Start with the 1/4 cup and taste to see if more is needed. Add the vanilla extract and stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Set aside.

Cut the second piece of pastry up into eight equal strips.  Brush the edges of the bottom pastry with water and lay the strips along the edges. Brush that layer with water and add the last four strips.

 Dock the bottom pastry in the middle with a sharp knife or a fork. This will keep it from puffing up under your fruit.

Spoon the fruit into the middle of your pastry “walls” and drizzle the leftover juice over it, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Dot the fruit with the slices of the butter.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and puffy. At our house, I usually serve this with double cream for pouring but unsweetened whipped cream or even vanilla ice cream would go quite nicely as well.

* I am calling this a summer fruit tart, but honestly, you can make this with thinly sliced apples or plums or pears or whatever fruit you have on hand all year round.   Or if you were looking for a savory treat – perhaps to serve with salad at a luncheon, caramelized onions with some feta cheese would also be a divine filling. Use your imagination.