Nan's Plum Sauce

There's a story behind this recipe.

Dylan always used to rave about his Nanna's plum sauce. I thought it must be like the transparent gear you get at grungy Chinese restaurants to go with the roasted duck or spring rolls. Although I must admit that stuff is delicious, I was so wrong. Nanna Trail's plum sauce is thick, spiced, salty, sweet, fruity and very savoury. It's brilliant and you have to make it!

There was a famous tale of Dylan's Mum, Dallas, getting on a flight to Brisbane from the Bay of Islands with several bottles of freshly made plum sauce for her beloved son.

Unfortunately, this was RIGHT after the 'powers that be' changed the liquid quantity rules for carry-on luggage on international flights. Poor Dallas was forced to turf the lot of it! Devastating! Dylan hadn't forgiven her in over five years because THEN Nana lost the recipe!! What a tale of woe!

Magically, when we were visiting Nanna and Dallas at Christmas, 2014, WE FOUND THE RECIPE BEHIND HER LANDLINE in the kitchen! Happy Day! We made the sauce, it was fabulous and now it's a family tradition for the Australian branch of the Mapp family too!

Metric Ingredients:

3.6kg plums (red or yellow centred are both fine) 1.8kg sugar 1tsp pepper 28 grams of allspice 14 grams cayenne pepper 28 grams of cloves 1.13 litres of malt vinegar 0.45kgs salt 6 large brown onions

Method:

Get a massive saucepan (7 - 10 litre capacity).

Chop the plums roughly over the saucepan and drop in, including the pips.

Add all other ingredients. Round them up or down depending on the stock you have in the cupboard and your appreciation for spice.

Boil for 3 hours then sieve into sterilised bottles or jars. Keeps really well for 3 years and then it's still pretty bloody good. If you don't have malt vinegar, white will work perfectly well too.

Awesome as an alternative to barbecue sauce, and the perfect recipe for January when there is an abundance of cheap plums overflowing at your local Queensland market!