Relish thine relish

After the marathon chutney session yesterday, my mother went to poke around in her garden. Unluckily for me, she found a cucumber vine that had been “hiding” and came back to the house with tons of huge, overgrown pickling cucumbers…and we already had a bowl full of big boys dying to be used. All the cucumbers were too large to be used in any pickle application and all had seeds too mature to be used for anything without de-seeding, but after that was done, I decided they were perfect test specimens for a relish.

Now, I can’t even remember the last time I ate relish, so declaring that I was going to make the stuff prompted a lot of questioning from the family. But I quickly found a recipe for dill relish, which I thought sounded decent (half of why I don’t eat relish is because I abhor sweet cucumber pickles), so I made some modifications and went for it.

Were I to try to make relish again, I would try to find a way to get a larger mince to the vegetables. I processed everything in a Kitchen Aid food processor, and it ground everything into something just larger than a purée. It tastes fine, but I think I would prefer a slightly ‘chunkier’ texture. All in all, though, I think this is a relish I would make again. At least this one was yummy on a hot dog!

Dill relish on a jumbo dog

Dill Relish

7 quarts cucumbers, ground
4 green bell peppers, ground
1/2 cup kosher salt
2 tsp turmeric
1 quart water
2 large onions, ground
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbs dill seed
1 Tbs dill weed
1 Tbs stone ground mustard
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 quart vinegar

Wash the cucumbers and remove the blossom and stem end. If the cucumbers are mature, remove the seeds and roughly chop the rest. Finely chop the cucumbers in a food processor until approximately 7 quarts are produced. Remove the seeds and membrane from 4 green bell peppers. Roughly chop the peppers and finely chop them in the food processor. Combine the peppers and cucumber and stir in the salt and water; let the mixture stand approximately 2 hours.

Drain the cucumber mixture thorougly. Rinse the pulp under cold water, then drain thoroughly again.

Peel and roughly chop the onions and chop them in the food processor until they are as fine as the cucumber mix.

Combine the onions with the drained cucumber in a 6-8 quart pot and add the remainder of the ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer 10-20 minutes.

Ladle the relish into hot, sterilized jars leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove the air bubbles and process the jars for 10 minutes in a water canner.

Makes approximately 10 half pints.