The Foodies Forum

Manta Ray a l'Anglaise

3lbs chopped onion
10 cloves garlic
1 tube tomato puree
1 and a quarter pints vinegar
2 heaped teaspoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons chilli powder (or 3 teaspoons cayenne pepper)
2 chicken stock cubes or 1/2 pint good chicken stock
8 x 14oz cans tomatoes chopped
1 and a quarter lbs sugar
salt
splash of oil

Sweat the chopped onion in the oil, add everything else and simmer till it's reduced and thicker, but not as thick as say chutney. Check seasoning. Makes about 14 x 12oz jars. See below.

I used to work in a local hotel kitchen and this is one of their recipes, you can break it down to using 1 can of tomatoes, but this is a wonderful store cupboard staple and is great on chicken portions, pork ribs or chops, or stir fried with steak. It doesn't need any cooking so I cook the meat in the oven and pour a jar over and finish for about 10 minutes

Wash and dry 14 x 12oz jam jars with lids, add the boiling sauce, clean rims and put the lid on - tighten. As the sauce cools the lid will pop, if it's a pop type, other lids will just feel tight, if you can push your thumb against the middle and depress it, then it hasn't sealed.
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dingsy · Moderator Joined: 29 Apr 2007 Posts: 931 Location: Devon

How hot is this one? I used a lovely (shop bought

) one, which I find has the perfect balance between hot and sweet. If this is quite mild, I'll maybe increase the amount of chilli powder.Am going to scale it down to about 6 jars too.

Nannyp · Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:09 am Post subject:

brilliant, thanks Itsyray....will save me loads of money, as I have to buy the stuff from the English section, and its always marked up.
q15

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NannyP's Hens

Manta Ray a l'Anglaise · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:11 pm Post subject:

dingsy · Moderator Joined: 29 Apr 2007 Posts: 931 Location: Devon

I'll maybe just add a touch more....like things quite nippy!

Manta Ray a l'Anglaise · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:58 pm Post subject:

You'll find when you've made it that you'll wish you hadn't bothered messing about with only 6 jars

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Nannyp · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 1:07 pm Post subject:

I only have 2lbs of onions, can I make up the difference with leeks?

Preferable to using fuel and driving to the shop.
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NannyP's Hens

Manta Ray a l'Anglaise · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject:

Nannyp · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject:

Excellent and stop that laughing, some of us have no idea you know

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Manta Ray a l'Anglaise · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject:

Me? Laughing

never. . . .

The thing is in that sauce the onions are adding flavour but mostly bulk as the chief flavouring is the contrast between sweet and sour and the hotness of the chilli, so you could easily use just 2lbs and not particularly notice any difference in the flavour, it just wouldn't make quite as much.

Several years ago I made some green tomato chutney from a recipe in a British Sugar book which in general is one of my bibles, but this chutney was never up to much so one day I broke it down into it's seperate entities, so there's the bulk items and the flavourings, I also broke down another chutney recipe and I discovered that the % of vinegar and spices in the green tomato was much lower than in the other so I adjusted it to the same % and the resulting chutney was really nice, the original worked, it just didn't have much ooomph.

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