A Glut Worth Saving

Come late August and September, the grass under an old apple tree in a British garden becomes a complicated place. Windfalls are everywhere — some sound, many bruised, a fair few already dark and soft. The temptation is to rake them onto the compost heap and move on. But a bucket of windfalls is one of the best free ingredients a kitchen gardener gets all year, and with an afternoon's work it becomes jars of spiced chutney, bottles of cloudy juice, or a crock of cider vinegar that will season dressings and pickles well into next spring.

The rule is simple: pick up windfalls daily, sort them the same day, and never let them sit in a warm heap. Rot spreads fast, and a single mouldy apple will taint the whole basket. Anything with brown rot, black spots that go deep, or an alcoholic smell goes on the compost. Bruised, bird-pecked and scabby fruit is perfectly good — you simply cut the damage away.

Windfalls come in mixed sorts, and that is an advantage. Eatings apples bring perfume and juice; cookers bring sharpness and pectin, which helps chutney set and juice clear. Mix them together and your preserves will taste better than anything made from a single variety.

Preparing and Sorting Your Fruit

Set up a production line: a bucket of water for washing, a chopping board, a bowl for good fruit, a bowl for trimmings. Work through the basket in one sitting.

• Wash each apple in cold water and rub off the dust and sooty patches.
• Quarter it, then cut away bruises, codling moth tunnels, scab and the core.
• Keep trimmings — peel and cores go into a separate bag for vinegar, as they carry plenty of flavour and wild yeast.
• Use the good flesh promptly. If you cannot cook that day, drop pieces into lightly salted water or a little lemon juice to stop them browning, then refrigerate overnight.

Aim to have prepared fruit ready to cook within two hours of picking. This is not fussiness; it is the difference between a fresh-tasting preserve and one with a flat, slightly fermented note.

Spiced Windfall Chutney

This is the most forgiving use of a mixed basket. You need about 1.5kg of prepared apple flesh, and this quantity fills roughly five or six 300ml jars.

Chop the apple roughly and put it in a heavy preserving pan with 500g chopped onions, 350g raisins or sultanas, 500g demerara sugar and 600ml cider vinegar. Add 1 teaspoon each of ground ginger, ground allspice and mustard powder, a good grating of nutmeg and a pinch of dried chilli. A few cloves tied in muslin can go in and be fished out at the end.

Bring it slowly to the boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then simmer uncovered for one and a half to two hours. Stir often, especially towards the end, or it will catch. It is ready when a wooden spoon drawn across the base leaves a clear channel that fills slowly, and there is almost no free liquid.

Pot into warm, sterilised jars while hot, filling to within a centimetre of the rim. Seal, then leave somewhere cool and dark for at least four weeks before eating — the vinegar needs time to soften. Unopened, it keeps for two years; once opened, refrigerate.

Cloudy Apple Juice

Juice is the quickest way to deal with a big glut. Roughly chop clean, sound windfalls — skins, cores and all — and put them in a large pan with just enough water to stop them sticking, about 250ml per kilogram of fruit. Simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes until the flesh collapses, then mash with a potato masher.

Tip the pulp into a sterilised jelly bag or a double layer of muslin over a bowl and leave it to drip overnight. Do not squeeze, or the juice will turn cloudy with sediment and taste muddy. Sweeten lightly if you like — a little honey or sugar syrup — though sharp, unsweetened juice is excellent with pork or in a hot toddy.

Fresh juice keeps only three or four days in the fridge, so if you want it to last, heat it to 70–75°C, hold it there for a minute without letting it boil, then pour into sterilised bottles and seal immediately. This pasteurises the juice without cooking away the fresh apple flavour. It keeps for several months in a cool cupboard; once opened, treat it as fresh. Alternatively, freeze in plastic cartons, leaving headroom for expansion.

Cider Vinegar from Peelings and Cores

Nothing from the windfall basket need be wasted. Pack peelings and cores into a large glass jar, cover with cooled boiled water, and stir in one tablespoon of sugar per litre to feed the wild yeasts on the skins. Cover the mouth with a cloth secured by a rubber band — it needs air but not fruit flies.

Stir daily for two weeks, keeping the solids submerged. Strain out the fruit, return the liquid to the jar, and leave it somewhere warm and dark for four to six weeks, stirring weekly. It will first smell yeasty and alcoholic, then sharp and vinegary. When it tastes like vinegar, bottle it in sterilised glass with a vinegar-proof cap. Use it in dressings, chutneys and pickles, and keep a little back as a starter for the next batch.

Storing, Labelling and the Seasonal Round

Label everything with the contents and date — memory is unreliable by February, and a jar of chutney looks remarkably like a jar of something else. Store preserves in a cool, dark cupboard, and check jars after a fortnight for any sign of mould or a lifted seal; anything suspect goes out.

Work with the season rather than against it. Early windfalls from sharp cookers make the best juice; later, sweeter fruit suits chutney. By the time the last leaves are down, your shelves should be holding the whole autumn — and if anyone asks what you did with all those bruised apples, you can hand them a jar.