Knotweed Chutney

I went to pick watercress today and ran into Cathy Walthers who had an armful of knotweed.  Cathy reminded me that Russ Cohen had pointed it out to us as an invasive edible plant that tastes very much like rhubarb.

I was making an Indian meal and had not made a chutney yet and there was an enormous amount of knotweed.

I cut the top 2-3 feet off the smaller, thinner plants I spotted. I gathered an armload and took it back to the kitchen where I pulled off the leaves. I chopped it into 3” pieces and I had about 10 cups of the fruit.  I added about 2 cups of orange juice, 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of rice wine vinegar and cooked it down for about ½ hour. As soon as the fruit was cooked through, I could tell many were cooked but many were still stringy. I placed it all in a blender and blended it until it was a puree. To that I added 2 chopped apples (skin on) and 1 cup of raisins (any dry fruit would do). I chopped a few pieces of candied ginger and returned it all to the pot where I cooked it for another 20 minutes or so. I removed it and allowed it to cool and served it with a chicken curry!

Knotweed Chutney - delicious!