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 – 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*
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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!
- 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)
- Start with preparing all of your ingredients.
- 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.
- Dice and seed the peppers and jalapeños. Chop up onions and shallots.
- In a large pot (nothing beats a good Dutch oven for this!), heat olive oil over medium to medium-high heat.
- Throw in all of the aromatic vegetables (peppers, onions, jalapeños) and sauté for 3-4 minutes.
- Add garlic and cook for another minute.
- Add in drained tomatoes.
- Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil for a couple minutes.
- Reduce heat to low and cover.
- Let simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced and thickened. This took about 2 hours for me, but will vary depending on the water content.
- 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.
- When ready to stop cooking, add pectin, return to a boil for 1 minute and remove from heat.
- Can as usual for long-term storage of gifts. Alternatively, store in refrigerator opened.
- Enjoy on toast, burgers, bagels or crackers with cream cheese, in white beans (my favorite!), etc.
- Enjoy! -- More on SouthernFATTY.com
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!
wait you simmer with lid on??? How will it reduce?
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!
OH that sounds amazing!
-Phillip
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Are the 4 cups diced and seeded red peppers bell peppers? Thank you
Yes. You got it.
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.
Love that you used those!
Enjoy,
Phillip
I used the peppers that were in my garden, Thai chilis, cayenne, and jalapeno. It’s super spicy, but delicious
I love it! I recently moved further into downtown and am not able to grow peppers myself anymore. Great use! Glad you are enjoying it.
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”
Hah! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It’s amazing on crackers with brie. Enjoy!
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?
Yes. I have canned this and tested the pH before I did so to below 4.6. The additional vinegar worked well for me to make sure it was low enough. If you are worried still, add a tablespoon of lemon juice.
Was wandering if you have to water bath or pressure this
I go with water canning for this one because it is more acidic. Always works great for me. Enjoy!
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?
Thanks! — Hmmmm… that is odd. My best guess would be that the batch of tomato that you used had a different amount of acidity. You could try adding a bit of vinegar to try to adjust it to set with the pectin.
hi can you use green bell peppers for this too?
Of course! You can add or swap them out as you please. Green peppers are a bit less sweet, but that shouldn’t be an issue with the sugar we are adding here.
If you make this recipe without handing how long can it be kept
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.
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.
Small world! You can leave the jalapeños out, but they aren’t incredibly strong in this. Maybe hide a few and keep it our secret.
Can’t wait to try this Phillip! What would you think of the outcome if honey was used in the place of sugar?
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!
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!!
Exactly why I made my own recipe. Hope you enjoy!
Hi Phillip – Sweet Red Pepper Relish sounds so delicious, and your post made me feel like it was summer already! I was fooled 🙂 In any case, I featured your recipe on my Friday Fives: Favorite Breakfast Recipes this week. You can find the roundup post here: http://www.theworktop.com/favorite-breakfast-recipes/jan-30-2015/
Thanks! — Great group of Favs to be included in.
I just want to pour this on top of a massive block of cream cheese and eat my feelings oh my goddddddd. Thanks, Phillip.
Pretty much my life rn. So good!
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.
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!
This is exactly what I need in my life!
Soooo addictive! I’ve put this stuff on everything.