Deb’s Tomato and Chilli Relish – Frozen or Fresh Tomatoes
Ingredients:
12 large tomatoes (fresh or frozen)
4 large onions
25g salt
750g brown sugar
Vinegar (have at least 1 litre available, I use Cider or white)
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tbsp curry powder
2 tbsp flour
2 Tablespoons Mustard Seeds
3 – 8 chillies (optional) Finely chopped
Cut tomatoes and onions into four or more pieces (I find it gives a better result if I cut them much smaller). I carefully cut my frozen tomatoes.
Sprinkle with salt in a bowl, stir gently and leave overnight (covered with cling wrap).
In the morning drain all the liquid off, and leave them sitting in a sieve or colander for half an hour to drain more off.
Put tomato and onion mix into a wide pan with sugar, mustard seeds and chillies (if using). Add enough vinegar to cover. Bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
Mix flour, curry powder and mustard powder to a smooth past with a little cold vinegar. Add to your pan and boil 5 minutes. Make sure the curry mixture is quite runny otherwise when you add it to the pan it is hard to stir through before it cooks and you get lumps. At this stage I put the stick blender in and mix it up a bit, as I don’t like the large pieces. And use more flour, mustard and curry powder if you need it thicker.
Pour into sterilised jars (I put the jars in the dishwasher, and lids in boiling water) and seal tightly. These should keep around one year.
Notes…
This year we had too many tomatoes, so any we couldn’t eat I washed and dried them and put in the freezer whole in bags.
This recipe can easily be made with fresh or frozen tomatoes. I do not peel my tomatoes. I have tried, but its messy and seems to take up a lot of time.
If you want to peel them, plunge them whole into boiling water for about a minute and the skin will split and then it is easy to peel it off. This is even easier if your tomatoes are frozen: just plunge them still frozen into the boiling water. It is better to use a saucepan of boiling water that you can keep boiling otherwise you can only do a few tomatoes at a time before needing to replace the boiling water.
The original recipe says 12 large tomatoes and 4 large onions. To be honest it probably doesn’t matter because you simply cover whatever quantity you have with vinegar and most of the other ingredients are flavouring. I generally use whatever tomatoes I have at the time and roughly guess the equivalent of about 12 big ones. If I am using some cherry tomatoes I don’t try to peel them, but I do cut them in half.
I usually just add whatever onions I have. Sometimes it makes 6 jars, other times it makes 12 jars but this can also depend on how long you simmer it as well.
For my 9 litre pot, I have it full of tomatoes and about 9 onions. I then use 1.5 kilos of brown sugar, 1 box of mustard seed, For my 6 litre pot, full of tomatoes and about 6 onions, half box of mustard seeds. I then use 1 kilo of brown sugar.
The picture shown here in the pan, I didn’t measure. I had about 2 bread bags full of frozen tomatoes (lots of cherry ones), I had about 10 smaller onions, and about 10 chilli’s.
This Pic shows it cooked at the end, and ready to bottle
