When my college boyfriend and I parted ways, it wasn’t the end of our relationship that I cried over – it was his grandmother’s plum sauce, similar in flavor and consistency to ketchup. She’d send us back to campus with some after every visit, the thick sauce decanted into upcycled soda bottles. Helen was a delightfully eccentric lady who lived alone with a menagerie of farm animals on the edge of a forest preserve. She had a laugh that was as warm and brash as the wood-burning potbelly stove she still cooked over. I immediately adored her.
Helen harvested the plums herself from a large prune plum tree behind her house. She walked with a cane thanks to a broken hip and, much to the chagrin of her relatives, insisted on climbing a ladder to pick buckets of plump purple plums. But when I asked for the plum sauce recipe she looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and said, “Ha! Not a chance.” And that was that.
Two decades later and a half a world away, I still think of her and that addictive plum sauce. Deep aubergine in color, it was spicy-sweet and absolutely perfect with fish and chips or a juicy burger.
With plums just now starting to come into season, I decided it was an ideal time to tinker with replicating her recipe. After a few batches that were good but not quite right I stumbled across a plum sauce recipe from the Edmond’s Cookbook, essentially New Zealand’s version of The Joy of Cooking. The recipe was pretty straightforward and as it simmered on the stove a faintly familiar aroma started wafting through my kitchen. After it was puréed, bottled and cooled, we tested it out on an order of fish and chips. It was tasty, but not quite there, so I stashed it in the garage fridge for a week, as per the instructions in Edmond’s Cookbook.
This is definitely a recipe that improves after sitting for a while in order to let the intense flavors meld. After some resting time, it was as perfect as I remembered. Turns out it’s not only delicious with burgers and chips, but also a sticky sweet glaze for pork tenderloin, smoked chicken wings or grilled salmon. It’s also an immensely riffable recipe. I’ve since taken to adding a few hot peppers from my garden to the mix for a spicy hot version.
This recipe was originally made with Italian prune plums, sometimes referred to as Fellenberg plums, which are small, oval plums with honey colored flesh and deep indigo skins which turn a brilliant fuschia when cooked. Prune plums can be found in season from late August through September, but this recipe also works with other varieties of plums and even peaches.
Plum sauce
Adapted from a recipe in the Edmond’s Cookbook
Ingredients:
6 pounds prune plums, halved and pitted
6 cups malt vinegar
3 cups brown sugar
1 onion, chopped
10-15 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg
Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed nonreactive pot and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. Cook for 20-30 minutes until the mixture is soft and pulpy. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool slightly before puréeing in a blender or food processor until smooth. (Use caution when puréeing hot liquids in a blender as pressure can build up inside the blender and force the lid to blow off.)
Return the mixture to the pan and return to a boil. Simmer for five minutes. It can then be poured into clear jars or bottles. Process in a water bath for shelf-stable storage, or decant into bottles to store in the fridge, where it will keep for several weeks.
Ashley Meyer is a chef, freelance writer and mom of two based in Springfield.
This article appears in August 28-September 3, 2025.
