When I was given an enormous marrow (actually an overgrown courgette) by a work colleague the other day, I was up for the challenge it would present seeing as I am the only person in my household that appreciates a good marrow!
In my best frugal style I’ve so far lived off the marrow for three days now and have got halfway through it and so far created three dishes. The first was a ‘Marrow Masala’ which made me two main dinners and a packed lunch for work, a courgette drizzle cake of which I ate several slices at home then brought the other half to work where surprisingly my mostly male colleagues enjoyed it despite telling them the main ingredient was “Allan’s Marrow”.
Today I used a recipe for wartime marrow chutney to make three large pasta jars full of this surprisingly delicious meal accompaniment. I’ll be taking one of these as a gift to a BBQ tonight, so pretty confident that I won’t be poisoning anyone…(despite building up a reputation as the ‘Letitia Cropley’ of South Yorkshire)
Here is the recipe
Marrow Chutney
- 2 lbs of marrow
- 2 apples
- 2 onions
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 lbs sugar
- handful of sultanas (optional)
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of pickling spices (I had none so used some dried herbs, pepper, crushed chilli flakes, turmeric)
- 3/4 pint of vinegar (I used 1/2 malt and 1/2 apple cider)
Method
- Chop apples into small pieces and slowly soften for 5 minutes in a large saucepan with a little of the vinegar.
- Add the two chopped onions, add more vinegar, cook for another 5 minutes stirring when needed.
- Chop up the marrow into 1/2 inch pieces (after removing skin and seeds) and add two pounds of marrow to the saucepan with most of the rest of the vinegar and stir.
- Hold some vinegar back to add later on if mixture gets too thick.
- Add the sugar, salt, sultanas, pickling spices and stir bringing to a simmer.
- Cook on medium/low for about 45 minutes until everything is cooked soft and some of the mixture is getting thick and pulpy. Add a little more vinegar if mixture is too dry and thick.
- Meanwhile add the clean rinsed jars on a baking tray into a preheated oven at 140 C for about 10 minutes until jars are hot and steep lids in boiling water.
- When mixture is ready removed from heat and remove jars from oven.
- Add hot mixture to hot jars and screw lids on.
Makes 3 larger jars or 5 jam jars. Will keep for a year in the larder, refrigerate once open.
Thanks for what sounds like a great recipe!
It took me a minute though to figure out what a narrow was. Here we call it zucchini.
At first, I thought this was a beef dish or something made with bone stock!
I love following your blog!
I can totally understand why you may initially think that!!! xxx Thanks for kind words! xxx C
That’s what I thought as well when I say the title to this post. I was curious how you were going to substitute marrow since I know you are vegetarian. Good way to drive people to your posts. We’re getting into oversized zucchini season here so these are perfect.
Wow! You look wonderful. So glad to see you looking so well. ‘;D
Thank you xxxx A LOOOONNNGGGG way to go and I’m at a bit of a stand still at the moment but persevering xxx
I thought you were talking about bone marrow 🙂
Rob Carignan, Portland, Maine USA
It does sound like that when you read it until you see the vegetable 🙂 xxxx
Hi Jennifer, Rob, etc
I have noted that some recipe books refer to a marrow as a vegetable marrow but as courgette or zucchini are all Cucurbita pepo cultivars when immature it follows that they must have another name when mature, hence the term vegetable marrow. What would you call a marrow in the USA or anywhere else for that matter ?
When we were given some last year we ended up making marrow jam, it might be marrow and ginger, either which way rather tasty 😀
Ooooo I need to make a couple of small pots, did you use ginger powder or fresh ginger? xxxx
It used crystallized or preserved Ginger and it was from Basic Basics Jams, Preserves and Chutneys by Marguerite Patten
Thanks for that heads up! xxxx
I have a Hamlyn recipe book by Marguerite Patten (dated 1963, a large format soft back) called “500 Recipes – Jams, Pickles & Chutneys”with 10 marrow recipes, all wonderful. All but one (a pickle recipe) are sweet spreads, but the marrow is used in many other recipes where it’s not the star ingredient but the Marrow and ginger jam is one of the yummiest jams ever, if you are a ginger fan !
I’m definitely trying this one.
It’s delicious! Nice and sweet and tangy, I’ve used a big spoonful in a Marrow stew this afternoon and it really boosted it! xxx
Thank you for this recipe. It sounds lovely. I was given a marrow yesterday and now I know what I will make with it,
I think marrows are not appreciated enough!!! I’ve managed to make so many things this week just from the 1 marrow, love it! xxxx