I love tomatoes. They are one of the things I look forward to most in summer and I always grow half a dozen varieties each year. This year I grew around 25-30 plants with varieties such as Money Makers, Golden Sunrise, Tigerella, Strawberry tomatoes and Cherry tomatoes all doing very well. Last week I was picking 500g+ each night after work…very satisfying.
One of my foodie childhood memories is making tomato relish with Mum so I’ve decided to have a bash and share my recipe.
Enjoy!
1.5kg tomatoes – quartered and ‘eyes’ removed
3 large onions – chopped
1.5 cups malt vinegar
1.5 cups demerara sugar
1.5 Tbsp mustard powder
1 Tbsp hot curry powder
½ tsp chilli powder
2 tsp salt
1½ Tbsp cornflour
- In a large, heavy-based saucepan simmer the tomatoes and onions over a low-medium heat until they have released their liquid and reduced by around half. Stir frequently. This will likely take around 1-1½ hours.
- Add the remaining ingredients and lower the temperature to a very gentle simmer.
- Continue cooking for around 2 hours until the relish has reduced by around 1/3 and thickened slightly.
- Mix the cornflour with a little water and add to the relish.
- Simmer a further 5 minutes.
- Store in sterilized glass jars until needed. For best results leave the relish to develop and integrate its flavours for a few weeks before consumption.
I’ve just made a similar tomato relish recipe but the cooking time is a lot shorter. I wonder if that is because the toms/onions are salted overnight to remove moisture. Do you think the long, slow cook you use would intensify the flavours more?
The receip I use is here.
Hi Erin,
I’ve found that longer cooking sweetens the flavour more and removes any bitterness, especially when cooking with onions. Onions have a lot of sugar that is only released under prolonged cooking and other vegetables such as broccoli also need a certain degree of cooking to remove a similar bitterness. The longer you cook sauces the more you remove water content, thus increasing natural flavour. I would imagine that salting the tomatoes and onions would also remove water content, resulting in a shorter cooking time.
Happy cooking,
Caleb