Gluten-Free Ploughman’s Pickle – a perfect chutney to go with cheese

For those living outside of the UK, you probably have no idea what a Ploughman’s pickle is. It is a spicy thick brown pickled chutney consisting mainly of swede (rutabaga), carrots, cauliflower and onions. A popular condiment to accompany many dishes and is often seen in pubs and restaurants along with the regular condiments on offer.

How do you eat ploughman’s pickle?

This pickle goes famously well with mature farmhouse Cheddar cheese and freshly baked bread.  This relish is a main-stay condiment in a typical Ploughman’s lunch, a popular pub meal in England, usually eaten, you guessed it, at lunch! It is a far from boring lunch as modern additions have joined this dish, such as good quality sliced ham, wedges of pork pie, vegetable crudities, boiled eggs, pickled onions, grapes, oatcakes, digestive biscuits and hot mustards. Let’s not leave out a generous glass of beer or cider!

It’s come a long way from originally being a British farm worker’s packed lunch.  Now it can be enjoyed as a meal on its own or shared on a wooden board to graze from.

Store-bought versus homemade

As the store-bought chutney is normally pickled in brown malt vinegar, which is derived from barley, this recipe uses apple cider vinegar to make it a possible gluten-free condiment.

In the UK, the original and well-known store-bought brand is Branston Pickle. There seems to be an ongoing debate as to decide if this store-bought relish is in fact gluten-free. As not all vinegars are distilled, e.g, malt vinegar – which is made from barley – this lack of distillation makes this relish unsafe for people with celiac disease.

If you are looking at making some gluten-free bread to accompany your Ploughman’s lunch, I would recommend making a baguette that can be cut into thin slices or several Kaiser bread rolls that can be made into mini bread rolls.