Ginger Apricot Chutney

Experimenting(or raging around) in the kitchen is a great way to discover new favorite foods.  I was planning to make “healthy” shrimp spring rolls and wanted to have a nice sauce to go with them.  Rather than search the inter webs, I randomly came up with an idea of a ginger apricot sort of sauce.  Then went to the internet to gather some  ideas from recipes others have already written using these two ingredients.  Too make a long story short, this is what I ended up doing.  Rage on.

Ingredients

1. 1 T Olive Oil
2. 1 Garlic Clove, minced
3. 1/2 an Onion, diced
4. 170 g Dried Apricots, diced
5. 1 T Ginger
6. 1 T Cider Vinegar
7. 2 T Brown Sugar
8. 240 mL Orange Juice

Quick Directions

1. Heat oil in a sauce pan, sauté  onions until translucent.
2. Add garlic and cook till fragrant, about 1 min.
3. Add rest of the ingredients except the brown sugar.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until it begins to thicken up, about 10-15 mins.
5. Add brown sugar, cook another 2-3 mins.
6. Finished!  This can be served warm right away, or cooled down for use cold.

Detailed Directions
As always, make sure you have everything ready to go before you start cooking.  I found this recipe to be simple and it didn’t really require a lot of my attention while it was cooking.  However, you always want to have your mise-en-place(French term for “everything in place” or as I was taught, “mess in place”) ready before you ignite the burners.
Simply start by heating the olive oil in your sauce pan on medium high, add the onions and sauté them until they become a nice translucent color.  Stir constantly so they don’t burn.  Once the nice color has been achieved, add in your garlic and wait for that rage-tastic smell.  Good, now we are getting somewhere.

Everything into the pool, except the brown sugar, that’s our closer today.  Bring it up to a boil and then reduce your heat till you get a nice simmer going.  A simmer is easy to spot, the surface of your liquid will be full of small bubbles instead of the large ones created by a boil.  We want to simmer here as we are now doing a cooking process called reducing.  Simply stated, it’s the part where we cook out the liquid to make the flavors more intense.  During this phase, it can be left mostly alone, but I like to stir often to avoid any ingredients going rogue and sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Once most of the liquid has cooked out, add in the brown sugar and stir.  A bit of liquid left is just fine here, but if you find yourself with too much, just keep letting it simmer until you find the consistency your looking for.  The brown sugar will help it thicken up slightly but it won’t provide miracles.
That is pretty much all there is too it.  Your next step will be to determine if you want to serve it warm or cold.  I tried both and found I preferred it warm.  I served it over the top of shrimp spring rolls, but found it worked well over shredded pork.
Rage on!