Chilli Relish

Another internet outage has caused a bit of a delay with uploading this one so I though I’d share it before the internet cuts out again. This recipe is a family recipe given to me by my mum’s friend Karen. Karen was kind enough to show me how to make it when she visited so I thought I would share the delicious results.

This relish recipe, like most I’ve tried in the past, was relatively simple if a little time-consuming. Start out by de-seeding, peeling, and roughly chopping everything.

Put about a third of everything you’ve chopped up into the blender. We found that an apple, an onion, a handful of chopped chillies and peppers, and a large handful of raisins with about 2/3 of a cup of vinegar worked nicely.

Blend until it’s the consistency you want. If you like it quite chunky only blend it a little. We blended it until it was smooth-ish with a few chunks (mostly raisins).

Add the blended mixture to a large saucepan with ½ tbsp. of salt. Simmer the mixture for about thirty minutes then stir in the sugar. Mix in 1 tsp of mixed spice, and 1 tsp of ground cloves.

Simmer it for about 20-30 minutes stirring regularly to make sure it doesn’t stick. When the mixture has thickened slightly take it off the heat and carefully ladle it into clean glass jars. Leave them to cool on the bench. The heat of the chutney should re-seal the jars if they are left to cool completely on the bench. Sealed jars can be kept in the cupboard until you’re ready to use them. Any jars that don’t seal just store them in the fridge.

We reused old jars that we had sitting in the cupboard. If you’re going to reuse old jars sanitise them first. The easiest way to do that is to take the lids off and boil the jars and lids in a large pot for 10-15 minutes. Then use tongs to place them on a baking tray and dry them off by placing them in a hot oven (about 180°C) for 5-10 minutes. Make sure you use glass jars with metal lids otherwise it might not work properly.

Ingredients (Makes about 6 jars)

• 5 red chillies
• 5 banana peppers
• 3 large green apples
• 250g raisins
• 3 large onions
• 500mL of white vinegar (we ran out of white vinegar so we used ¾ white vinegar and ¼ white wine vinegar)
• 2 ½ cups of caster sugar
• 1 tsp of mixed spice
• 1 tsp of ground cloves

Method

1. De-seed and roughly chop the chillies and peppers. Peel and roughly chop the onions and apples. If the raisins are quite large chop them too.
2. Put about a third of everything in the blender. Blend until it’s the consistency you want. If you like it quite chunky only blend it a little. We blended it until it was smooth-ish with a few chunks (mostly raisins).
3. Add the blended mixture to a large saucepan with ½ tbsp. of salt. Simmer the mixture for about thirty minutes then stir in the sugar.
4. Mix in 1 tsp of mixed spice, and 1 tsp of ground cloves.
5. Simmer it for about 20-30 minutes stirring regularly to make sure it doesn’t stick.
6. When the mixture has thickened slightly take it off the heat and carefully ladle it into clean glass jars.