Plums are great, but like zucchini there comes a time when enough is enough.
We had a plethora of plums from our CSA (and the friends we share it with don’t like them…) and the Accidental Locavore was afraid they’d go bad.
I came across this brief description of a plum chutney that was supposed to be like hoisin and it seemed like a good use for some of the plums (the others went into a cake—more about that later). It made about 2 cups.
Plum Chutney-Hoisin Sauce
- ½ of a medium onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves peeled and smashed
- 3″ piece of ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 serrano, Thai or jalapeno chile, seeded and coarsely chopped (more or less depending on your heat tolerance)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 small star anise
- ½ cup rice wine vinegar
- 2/3 cup sugar (more or less depending on how sweet your plums are)
- About 10 plums, pitted and halved
Put all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer 25-30 minutes.
Remove the star anise and put the rest into a blender or food processor.
Process until pureed. Taste and adjust seasonings, chiles as needed.
Serve and enjoy!
My verdict:
Oops, big mistake! Forgot to remove the star anise before I blended it. I tried to compensate by adding some more soy sauce and the last of the rice wine vinegar, but the taste of the star anise is still pretty strong!
Otherwise, it’s a really good sauce. Think of it as a cross between a plum sauce (duh) and hoisin. It would be great on duck and something like a pork tenderloin. Hmm, might be time to do a slow roasted duck and see how this works. What do you think?
Yum!