Do you make nice chutney? Because I bloody don't. Can you help me?

[policywonk]

I followed the recipe, honest guv, but it just reeks of vinegar and little else. Should I just chuck in a load of sugar?

Geeta's chutneys don't taste of vinegar, so why do mine? Or have I made a pickle by mistake? I don't like pickle.

I did hugh fearnley whitting's Glutney, it was fab (green tomatoes, whatever you have really)

And did it smell very strongly of vinegar just after you'd finished making it?

not really. i put chilli in one lot too

Thanks. I've just found that recipe online and he uses a lot more fruit than my recipe does - I might try again tomorrow with a load of fruit and tomatoes and incorporate my vinegary mass.

delia's christmas chutney (think it is on delia online) - loads of dried fruit and it's not vinegary. i did another chutney recipe, a plum one from somewhere, that was incredibly vinegary - i just ended up cooking it for MUCH longer than it said to get rid of some of it. is it still quite liquidy? if so might just need longer cooking.

Policywonk - you have to leave chutney for at least 3 months before eating it so that it can mature and lose its vinegaryness (it's not like jam which you can eat immediately)

Nooooo don?t throw it away!
Leave it until Christmas and it will be lovely by then.
Always make mine in summer/end of summer and are perfect by Christmas. Even Delia?s supposedly fast chutney recipe for eating immediately is too vinegary by my standards and needs several weeks to mature and lose the vinegary acid tang

Dang you, I was going to mount Operation Insert Soft Fruit tomorrow. (Wasn't going to throw it away!!) Now I'm not sure.

Maybe I will diddle about with half of it and leave the other half untouched, and see what happens.