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Dixie Relish
3 or 4 whole red peppers 1 pint chopped sweet green peppers 1 pint chopped sweet red peppers 1 quart chopped cabbage 1 pint white onions 2 tablespoons salt 4 tablespoons mustard seed 2 tablespoons celery seed 3/4 cup sugar 1 quart vinegar Soak green and red peppers in brine for twenty-four hours, using one cup salt to one gallon water. Take from the brine and freshen in clear, cold water, from one to two hours. Drain well, cut open, remove seeds and white sections, and chop the peppers. Put cabbage and onions through the food-chopper separately and measure before mixing. Add chopped cabbage and onions to chopped peppers. Add salt, spices, sugar and vinegar. Let the mixture stand overnight in a covered crock or enameled vessel. Drain, and heat the liquid. When hot add the other ingredients and cook for ten minutes. Seal in clean, hot jars.
A vinegar relish of the chow-chow family, built on brined sweet peppers with cabbage and onion. The recipe assumes hand-cranked equipment and open-kettle sealing, so a few steps need translating.
- The two red pepper entriesThe list calls for both 3 or 4 whole red peppers and a pint of chopped sweet red peppers. The recipe never says what the whole ones are; they may well be hot red peppers added for heat, since the sweet peppers are already accounted for by measure, but that is an inference. Treat the quantity as a matter of taste rather than a fixed amount.
- The brineOne cup salt to one gallon water is roughly a 6 to 7 percent brine, depending on the grain of the salt. Use pickling or kosher salt without iodine or anti-caking agents, which can cloud the brine and darken the vegetables.
- Freshening is not optionalThe one-to-two-hour soak in cold water pulls the brine back out. Skip it and the finished relish will be aggressively salty, because two more tablespoons of salt go in later.
- Measure after choppingThe instruction to run cabbage and onions through the chopper separately and measure before mixing means the pints and quarts are volumes of already-chopped vegetable, not of whole heads. A quart of chopped cabbage is roughly half a small head; a pint of chopped onion is about 2 medium onions.
- Food chopperA hand-cranked food chopper produces a coarse, uneven grind with juice. A food processor pulsed a few times gets close; run it too long and you get pulp that will not drain.
- The overnight stand and the drained liquidStanding overnight in a covered crock or enameled vessel draws liquid from the vegetables. Use glass, stainless or enamel throughout, never bare aluminum or cast iron, which react with vinegar.
- Ten minutes means ten minutesThe short cook after the hot liquid goes back in is what keeps the cabbage and peppers crisp. Longer boiling gives a soft, dull relish.
- Sealing"Seal in clean, hot jars" is open-kettle canning, which current practice has abandoned for pickles because the jars are not processed after filling. Follow a current tested procedure for a boiling-water bath, or treat the finished relish as a refrigerator pickle and use it within a few weeks.
- YieldExpect roughly 5 to 6 pints, depending on how far the vegetables cook down.