Southern FATTY

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Sweet Red Pepper Relish

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Sweet Red Pepper Relish

 

Let’s just imagine that it’s warm, beautiful summer. Weekends on the lake are my jam. Sun beams, fishing, burgers on the grill, warm swims, evening boat rides. *sigh*

 

There is this tiny little hole-in-the-wall restaurant near the lake, which I like call home in the summer, that serves what we Southerners call down-home cookin’–  Amazing catfish, unlimited hushpuppies (seriously!), and the most amazing slow-cooked seasoned white beans with a house-made jam-like Sweet Red Pepper Relish on the table. This stuff is just plain addictive. After batches and batches of ehhhh ok results, I finally nailed it.

 

 

Kentucky Lake

Kentucky Lake – Summer 2014

 

Generally, we clean and fry our own fish when we are lucky enough to catch a few. If you’ve never had freshly caught and fried catfish, you are missing out. On those slow days, we jump in the car and travel just a couple miles away to the hush puppy heaven (not the official name, but should be – don’t steal. future restaurant idea. ©®™).

 

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I might even try to not catch anything just so we can go… I mean, did you see that I said they have unlimited homemade hush puppies?! *faints*

 

Red Peppers for Relish

 

Veggies for Relish

 

While the hush puppies lure you in, it’s the sweet red pepper relish is what keeps you there until you’ve eaten so much that you just ask for them to pull up a bed and let you nap right there beside the table. You can put this stuff on everything. Everything.

 

Tomatoes for Relish

 

Beans are ok and all, not really something I would typically think about all day at work and come home to make (like doughnuts), but with this relish they are exactly that. I made 6 jars full of this jammin’ jelly and half of it may be gone already. Addictive!

 

Relish Ingredients

 

I wish I could say that I picked these veggies myself to make this mix. Since it is currently miserably cold, snowy, rainy, blah January, I just picked these up from a local produce provider. I’m sure this will be even better when the veggies are in season locally. Until then… This works juuuust fine.

 

You could really play around quite a bit with these ingredients. I used some beautiful red peppers, onions & shallots, tomatoes, and jalapeños for a bit of a kick. The final result isn’t spicy at all. You just really need that tiny bit of heat element with all of the sweetness being featured.

 

A bit of sugar for the relish

 

Seasoning Relish

 

Since we have so many fresh, healthy veggies in the pot, we should probably balance that with a bit of sugar and spice. We all know that that makes everything nice. I’m fairly new to the canning world, but have done a bit of research to find out that all of the sugar is really necessary for a jam-like consistency like this has.

 

Cooking Down Relish IngredientsCooking Down Relish Ingredients

 

I added a bit of pectin to help bind things, but with as little as these have lasted, could probably have omitted it completely. If you are storing (canning) up for a long winter, gifts, zombie apocalypse, or perhaps your doom’s day prep stash, I would throw some in for good measure.

 

Sweet Red Pepper Relish

 

I wish I could more accurately describe how delicious this stuff really is. It ends up being this jam-like consistency, leaving tiny soft bits of all of the different vegetable elements. You get all of these different flavors blended while still experiencing each one individually when you eat it.

 

Sweet Red Pepper Relish

 

The red pepper and vinegar base is complimented by the sugar perfectly. Yes, your kitchen may smell like a middle-school volcano experiment for the evening. But, the hours that you allow the mixture to simmer away couldn’t be better spent. As Julia says, “Nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.”

 

 

Sweet Red Pepper Relish

 

The possibilities of things to put this on are endless. Crackers, toast, beans, bread, chicken, burgers (sooo good with a soft, creamy cheese)…

 

Sweet, deep complex flavors that you can enjoy all year long. Or at least if you make enough.

 

With daydreams of summer– Enjoy, y’all!

 

 

Sweet Red Pepper Relish
 
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Prep time
Total time
 
Homemade Sweet Red Pepper Relish -- A sweetened red pepper, onion and tomato jam-like relish. Perfect sweet condiment to top burgers, bagels or crackers with cream cheese, in white beans (my favorite!), etc. Deliciously simple. Easy to can and keep year-round. From SouthernFATTY.com
Serves: (4-6) 8oz Jars
Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 cups red pepper, diced & seeded
  • 3 cups tomatoes, diced & seeded
  • 1 cup yellow or white onion, diced
  • 1 cup shallots, diced
  • 3 jalapeños, diced & seeded
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced finely
  • ¾ cup white vinegar
  • ¾ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1 and ½ tablespoons salt
  • ½ tablespoon cayenne, ground
  • ¼ teaspoon cumin, ground
  • pinch red pepper flakes (more by preference for heat)
  • 2 tablespoons pectin (somewhat optional, but needed for canning)
Instructions
  1. Start with preparing all of your ingredients.
  2. Peel, dice, seed the tomatoes. Let the diced tomatoes drain in colander for several minutes. You don't want much water in this or it will increase your simmering time and not thicken well.
  3. Dice and seed the peppers and jalapeños. Chop up onions and shallots.
  4. In a large pot (nothing beats a good Dutch oven for this!), heat olive oil over medium to medium-high heat.
  5. Throw in all of the aromatic vegetables (peppers, onions, jalapeños) and sauté for 3-4 minutes.
  6. Add garlic and cook for another minute.
  7. Add in drained tomatoes.
  8. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil for a couple minutes.
  9. Reduce heat to low and cover.
  10. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced and thickened. This took about 2 hours for me, but will vary depending on the water content.
  11. If canning, aim for a temp of 220 F. You can test to see if it will thicken when cooled and canned by placing a plate in the freezer for a few minutes, dropping a teaspoon of the jam on the cold plate and tilting to see final viscosity.
  12. When ready to stop cooking, add pectin, return to a boil for 1 minute and remove from heat.
  13. Can as usual for long-term storage of gifts. Alternatively, store in refrigerator opened.
  14. Enjoy on toast, burgers, bagels or crackers with cream cheese, in white beans (my favorite!), etc.
  15. Enjoy! -- More on SouthernFATTY.com
Notes
2015 - SouthernFATTY.com
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 tablespoon

 

I’ve had several people ask what jars I used in these shots. They are Quilted 1/2 Pint Jam Jars by Ball. Check them out HERE.

 

What’s your favorite summertime spot dish? Share below!

 

 

 

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  1. I’ve made this relish every year now. People beg me for it. I use Italian Sweet peppers Giant Marconi or Carmen . I’ve added a small can of chipotle peppers when I do a double batch. Without chipotle I add some relish to my shrimp scampi. Delicious!!

    Reply

  2. I added the pectin when it said to add the rest of the ingredients ahhhhhh. ‍♀️ Is this going to mess it up?

    Reply

    • Woops! Good point. I will update the instructions.
      It will depend on the natural pectin content of your peppers, but this is a fairly small amount. It may risk too much water boiling off and it being too firm. I would just add 1/4 cup water or so to be safe and be sure to stir often to the pectin doesn’t set too quickly. I think it will be just fine.

      Let me know how it goes!

      -Phillip
      Have a photo to share?
      Tag us on social using @southernfatty / #southernfatty!

      Reply

  4. I use a mixture like this in my meatloaf…..no need to even add any other peppers or onions, just this and a few bread crumbs and an egg. Top it with this in the last lil while of cooking and it gets all gooey and perfect on top, LAWWWD!

    Reply

  6. This is the best Sweet Pepper Relish. Thanks! I used a Anaheim Pepper that I grew instead of a jalapeno. It still gave it a nice kick.

    Reply

  8. This is absolutely amazing & addicting…only problem is after all the work skinning, seeding the tomatoes, I only got 6 jars which didn’t last long…..this recipe is a definite keeper….thank you for adding some “Heat to my life”

    Reply

  9. Have you canned this?
    Is it safe to can?

    I dont see where you have listed headspace, jar size, processing time?

    Has it been tested for safety or just for flavor?

    Reply

  10. This is the BEST recipe ever! I just made another batch but I just can’t seem to get it from being runny. I’ve drained the tomatoes well, cooked longer then two hours, even used two boxes of pectin. Any other suggestions?

    Reply

    • Without canning it? Typically, high sugar jams and jellies last quite a while. Bacteria has a very difficult time growing in sugar. I would comfortably think it keeps well refrigerated for a month. You may be able to freeze this one, but I haven’t tried myself yet.

      Reply

  13. I believe I have been to that eatery, or at least one of the probably 200 just like it around KY Lake. They sold us 20oz styrofoam cups of that hypnotic substance after we begged profusely. They make it in house they claimed. I have to wonder if I left the jalapenos out if it would suffer. My wife is not one to eat anything hotter than mild breakfast sausage.

    Reply

    • Hope you enjoy! I haven’t swapped honey in this recipe before, but the general rule I follow with jams/jellies is to use 2/3 cup honey for every 1 cup of what you would normally add in granulated sugar. I would decrease the other liquids (vinegars) by a bit as well (maybe try 1/2 cup of each one instead of 3/4). You will definitely want to use the recommended pectin addition if you use honey. If not, I doubt it will set correctly. Let me know how it goes!

      Reply

  15. OHHH….I am so excited to find this recipe…I have looked and looked for just the right one, and as Phillip has described this one, I just know it is going to be good. I can’t WAIT to make some!! I have tried to duplicate the taste that you get from the restaurants with no luck….NOW, I will have some for beans and whatever else we want to put this relish on….do you know that not even the canning books have a recipe like this?…unbelievable. Thanks SO much Phillip for the great description and recipe!!

    Reply

  18. This looks delicious. For some reason I’m thinking fresh-roasted turkey? Would you have to use the pectin if you’re canning? I do jams and stuff and I don’t use the pectin…isn’t pectin for thickness, not a safety thing? I only can in the summer and every year it’s like I’ve never done it before…I forget everything.

    Reply

    • Roasted turkey would be great with this! I’m hardly knowledgable about canning. At all, really. I’ve only done it a handful of time. Pectin is for the thickness. It’s just a chain of simple sugars/fiber that bind to thicken the jam. I feel like if you cooked this down well enough, you wouldn’t need it at all.

      Yell if you try it out and let me know what you think!

      Reply