Tomato relish

Being able to take a bag of homemade tomato sauce out of the freezer in the winter and spring, long after the last fresh tomato has been picked, is one of those things that gives me a warm glow and reminds me why I love growing veg in the summer garden. I use the defrosted sauce in stews and casseroles and pasta sauces and I hate it when I run out and have to start using cans of tomatoes to make up the shortfall. This year, I decided to grow as many tomato plants as I could fit in the greenhouse and in sunny places around the garden to see if I could get through until the next growing season without having to resort to canned tomatoes. Realistically, I doubt I'll ever achieve that - but it's been fun trying and I've got loads of plants producing masses of lovely, tasty fruit.

After years of experimenting with different varieties, I thought I'd finally found my favourite two. 'Mountain Magic' has lovely round, sweet fruit and is very resistant to tomato blight, which is a big bonus as I've had entire crops wiped up by that before, and that's doing really well indoors and out here again this year. But having grown 'Black Russian' for the past two years and got masses of super-juicy black fruits of a standard tomato size, it now seems to have morphed into a completely different plant. Its fruits this year are huge - beef tomato size - and although impressive it's really not all that tasty eaten raw and its colour is a bit wishy-washy compared to the lovely shiny black I've had from it in the past. Very odd. Luckily, it cooks down well and still makes a lovely sauce, though.

Someone else gave me some Black Opal seeds that I've also grown this year and and they are more what I was hoping for, so they will be my second tomato next year - unless they, too, suddenly take on a whole new set of characteristics as well!

The recipe I use for tomato sauce is the one I posted last year:
https://a-cooks-plot.blogspot.com/2018/05/extra-special-tomato-sauce.html

But I also set aside some tomatoes to make a few jars of relish, so here's the recipe for that.

Tomato Relish

2 large onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
finger-sized piece of fresh root ginger, grated
1 red chilli, chopped
1 tbsp ras el hanout spice mix
1kg fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp soft light brown sugar
250ml balsamic vinegar


Fry the onion until soft then add the garlic, ginger, chilli and ras el hanout and fry for a minute more. Add the tomatoes and fry for about 15 minutes until they are soft and have broken up. Add the sugar and vinegar and stir until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes until the mixture is thick. Ladle into sterilised jars and seal.

Leave for about 2 weeks before eating as the flavours need to time to develop.

Makes 3 small jars

Will keep for a couple of months. Store in the fridge once opened and use within a week.

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