Robbie Howard at the Pumpkin Festival Cooking Demonstration

The pumpkin punters looked on as Robbie made a pumpkin chutney and some roasted butternut squash with burnt aubergine and yoghurt. The latter recipe is from those excellent people at Ottolenghi restaurant in London, but here is Robbie's pumpkin chutney.

Pumpkin Chutney

1 tbsp olive oil
500g peeled and deseeded firm pumpkin or butternut squash flesh, cut into 1 cm cubes
200g ripe tomatoes (4 tomatoes)
200g onions chopped (2 onions)
25g sultanas
250g brown sugar
1 tsp salt
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove garlic
a little freshly grated nutmeg
300ml malt vinegar
1 tbsp panch phoran (Indian 5 spice) optional

In a dry saucepan toast the panch phoran just until they begin to pop and release their flavors. Add the oil to the pan and soften the onion for 7 minutes.

Put the pumpkin, tomatoes, sultanas, sugar, salt, ginger, garlic, nutmeg and 300ml of vinegar into a saucepan and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for about 45 minutes stirring from time to time. The chutney should look dark, dense and rich. Top up with extra water if the chutney dries out too much while cooking.

Bottle while hot with vinegar-proof lids.

Serve with ploughman’s lunch, scrambled eggs or cold meats.

It is a good idea to make sure the pumpkin flesh is firm and not stringy, or it will spoil the finished texture.

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