Chinese Plum Sauce

I use this lovely sauce a lot.  I use it to form the basis of a sticky sauce for pork ribs and also for chicken or as a ketchup for eating with a cold meat platter.  I tend to use plums that have been reduced in price from my local veg shop at £1 a bowl - there is usually about a kilo of fruit in each bowl.  These plums tend to be the South African purple plums but you can in reality use any plum.  The purple plums though do make a lovely jam and a jelly.  I have in the past used white wine vinegar instead of the rice wine vinegar but that was down to what I had in the cupboard at the time.  I use the smallest jars available from Lakeland or the smallest kilner jars.  There is more than enough sauce for two in a pot of this.  I also tend to pop the jars into a pan and bring to the boil until a seal is achieved for longer term storage (hot water bottle bath).
  
Ingredients:

2kg/4 1/2lb ripe plums
750g/1 1lb 10oz white onions chopped
cloves from 1 or 2 whole heads of garlic chopped
20cm/8inch piece of fresh root ginger/about 400g (140z) peeled and chopped
250ml light soy sauce
1 litre/ 1 3/4 pints rice wine vinegar or white whine vinegar
1kg/ 2 1/4lb light muscovado sugar
6 star anise finely ground

Method

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones now it is easier to remove them now.  Put all the ingredients except the sugar and star anise in a large preserving pan; bring to the boil and cover.  Simmer for 20 minutes until the ingredients are very soft.

Pass the mixture through a mouli or coarse sieve and return to the cleaned pan.

Add the sugar and star anise and ring to the boil stirring frequently to ensure that the sugar dissolves.  Simmer for about an hour until the sauce is thick and creamy.

Pot the sauce into hot sterilised jars.bottles seal with vinegar proof lids and label.

For a more fiery sauce add 4-6 red chillis deseeded if preferred then chopped with the vegetables at the start of cooking.

Because I hot water bath the bottles/jars they keep for ages on the pantry shelf.

Pattypan

Comments

  1. Oh this sounds lovely.. I must keep a watch for plums on sale and try it.. Thanks for your recipes.. Love your blog.. xo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Faye

    Its a good one for chicken as well as ribs and using as sauce with a meat platter. You definitely get the Star Anise Flavour come through. Well worth making.

    Pattypan

    x

    ReplyDelete

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