Sweet and Hot Pepper Relish

Quick pickling is just the beginning. I made this sweet and spicy relish to stretch some hot cherry peppers from my garden throughout the winter months.

Sweet and Hot Pepper Relish

INGREDIENTS

• 7-10 large hot cherry peppers, cut into 1” pieces

• 3 jalapenos, seeded and ribbed, cut into 1” pieces

• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

• 1 bulb shallot, thin sliced

• ½ teaspoon fennel seed

• 1 teaspoon salt

• ¼ cup  and 2 tablespoon raw honey, divided

• 2 cups purified or distilled water, divided

• 1 cup white wine vinegar

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 2 tablespoons pectin powder

TOOLS

• Saucepan

• Wooden spoon

• 1 sterilized pint jar

• 1 sterilized jam jar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare fresh ingredients.

2. In a small saucepan, bring one cup of water to medium-low heat. Mix in two tablespoons of honey until dissolved. Allow to cool.

3. Assemble chopped peppers, smashed garlic and shallots into the pint jar. Pour in white wine and apple cider vinegars. Sprinkle in fennel seed and salt. 

4. Add honey water to the jar until vegetables are completely submerged. Seal jar tightly and place in fridge, shaking and inverting every couple of hours. Let rest in fridge for 48 hours.

5. Strain vegetables from the jar, reserving ½ cup of the pickling liquid. Finely chop the pickled veggies. This can also be done in a food processor but I hate mine so I just used a knife.

6. Put pickled veggies into a saucepan, cover in the reserved pickling liquid and 1 cup water. Bring to medium-high heat and stir in remaining ¼ cup honey until dissolved. Allow most of the liquid to cook off, stirring frequently.

7. When the water has evaporated to the point that the vegetables are slightly exposed at the top, add in pectin and stir continuously until coagulation is noticeable. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

This is a recipe that is very amenable to doubling or tripling. Most recipes for a fresh fruit or vegetable relish is going to make enough for a small army so that you can give it away to friends and neighbors, etc. The peppers came from a tree that a work friend brought by our house one day, and it  started bearing fruit just as the first frost hit.

When I brought it in, it continued to produce big, bright red fruit that only fully ripened less than a week ago. The heat of the peppers is mostly a light, slow burn which is lovely in grilled fajita vegetables or on bratwurst, but since the summer’s over I decided to get a bit creative.

I first served the relish on little rye crackers with some goat cheese I made last week (recipe forthcoming, once I get better at it) and crumbled dried mint, also from my garden. It’s a lovely spread and versatile because it’s very sour and also very sweet.

I prefer to use honey as a sweetener over cane sugar whenever I can, but honey does carry a flavor of its own that can become even more intense when it’s heated. It’s for this reason that I chose to incorporate fennel seed into the recipe. My local honey naturally has mild anise notes, so fennel seed wouldn’t combat the honey flavor so much as create a smooth transition from the heat of the pepper to the sweetness of the jam.

Quick pickling is a great way to hang onto vegetables that I’d like to keep around for longer or maybe not eat all at once. Steps 1-4 can easily be followed roughly, with substitutions for the aromatics and spices however one might think the flavor profile could best be developed. It’s up to you really.

For example, following the creation of my pickles, I decided to take care of some very adorable little root vegetables I picked up from a farmer’s market in Fort Collins. The bag contained 1”-2” red and golden beets, carrots, rutabaga and daikon, which I blanched and peeled. I separated them primarily by color because I want to see the lighter vegetables and I had more red beets than anything else.

To the light roots jar I added mustard seed, caraway and thyme. To the red beets, dried minced garlic, dill seed and dill weed. They’re going to take a few days longer at least to really get to the pickled point I want, just because the structure of the roots are more fibrous and dense than peppers or cucumbers.

Quick pickles are a fun experiment and very versatile. I’m sure this is just the first of many posts about them.