Any Port in a Storm

Last Wednesday it was my birthday, a year older, a year wiser as well? Maybe, certainly a year where I'd achieved a lot and learned a bit more about myself. After the dog woke me up early I saw it was still raining heavily from the day before. While I waited on the weather to clear, so I could go a walk, I decided to use some of the Beetroot I'd purchased from the local greengrocers and some of the Port my wonderful secretary had got me for Christmas to make Chutney.

With the wonderful sound of Frank Zappa's 1974 Jazz-Rock Classic "The Roxy and Elsewhere" bouncing out of my newly repaired speaker system I set to work.

The ingredients were as follows:

Four Beetroot, topped,tailed, peeled and cubed.
Half a White Onion , topped, tailed, peeled and diced.
A tablespoon of Dried Ginger
Five stems of Marjoram from my herb garden.
Three tablespoons of Port.
A clove of Garlic topped, tailed, peeled and finely sliced.
Juice of Half a Lemon
Half a pint of water

In my Le Cresceut dish I fried in four ounces of melted and unsalted Butter on a medium heat on the hob the Beetroot, White Onion, Ginger, Marjoram, Port, Garlic and Lemon for around thirty minutes stirring them constantly to stop the ingredients from burning and sticking to the bottom of the Le Cresceut.

After the thirty minutes were up I added water and stewed the food for a further forty-five minutes in the Le Cresceut dish on a lowish heat.

When the food was ready I took the dish off the hob and left it to cool down. Once it had cooled down I then put it in an airtight container and left it into the fridge. In doing this it sealed in the flavour and stopped the chutney going off. I would recommend though with this type of Chutney that for the best taste you consume it within 2-3 days at most.

Later in the week I sampled it with a couple of pasties over an early lunch and found it to be very savoury with an extra rich flavour because of the Port.

Purple Reign- some of the Chutney boxed up and ready to eat.