by Gavin from The Greening of Gavin.
Chilly nights and the first frost on the ground? Have your tomato bushes finally finished, but there are still lots of green fruit on your plants? Well, look no further for a gourmet solution. This recipe will have you breaking out the Mason/Fowlers Jars in no time flat! I whipped up a few jars yesterday from left over tomatoes when I pulled out the last of my tomato vines on Saturday.
You need:
- 750 ml white vinegar
- 3 kg (6lbs) green tomatoes, any type
- 1 kg (2lbs) brown onions
- 3 tablespoons salt
- half teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 kg (2lb) sugar
- 3 tablespoons curry powder
- 3 tablespoons mustard powder
Method:
1. Chop the onions and tomatoes, sprinkle with salt, mix well in a bowl, then leave stand overnight.
2. The next day drain off the liquid. Add tomatoes/onions to a large frying pan and add three quarters of the vinegar. Bring to boil and boil for 10 minutes. Add the sugar, bring back to the boil whilst stirring. Then boil for 1 hour to reduce, stirring often.
3. Mix the remaining vinegar with the dry ingredients. Add to the pan and stir until well combined. Boil for a further 5 minutes, then bottle into sterilised bottles and seal.
In this case I halves the recipe and as you can see it makes about two and a half 600ml (1 pint) jars of pickle. I did not have enough green tomatoes to make up the 1.5kg I needed, so I added some not quite ripe red ones, hence the final colour of the pickle. I did not need to water bath the jars because there is so much vinegar in the recipe.
This is one of the nicest ways to use green tomatoes. I just hate throwing them into the compost bin along with the spent tomato vines. It tastes great, and a good way to use something one would normally throw away. If you have any green tomato tips, we would love to hear them via comment.
Enjoy!
16 comments:
do you refrigerate these or leave them on the shelf? will they last without a water bath? i am totally going to make this at the end of my season. thank you so much for posting this recipe. i love your blog. do you think you could advise me as to how to get people to read my blog? thanks so much...joyce
Mmmmmmm, my great-grandmother made and now my mother makes this every year. My favourite!
I could have sent you my left over green tomatoes ;-)
I borrowed the neighbor's 1960's edition of Cookery the Australian Way and made 3 batches of Green Tomato Relish. I still have green tomatoes on the kitchen counter. This is our first year of vegie gardening and lesson No.1 is don't plant too many tomato plants!
Jaz. They should last at least 6 months on the shelf, however having said that use your own judgement when it comes to determining the freshness of preserved food. Your readers will come. Start with friends and family, other interested folk. Just ask them to pass on your URL to people they think will be interested in the subjects you write about. You will find that your readership will increase each and every day!
greendraggon. Grandmothers have so much wisdom. I know for certain that both of mine had so much to share, bless them.
Joanne. You can never have enough tomato plants! I made jars of pasta sauce out of my glut and will enjoy it all winter long.
What does one use green tomato relish on?
Fried green tomatoes.... mmmm, an old "Suthun" standby. Slice the green tomatoes into 1/4' slices, dip into beaten egg, dredge in seasoned flour (salt & pepper) and fry in a thin film of olive oil, butter or lard if you are bent that way. Turn once brown and brown on other side. Serve hot. Outside is crisp, inside soft. Dear dear, here I am now, craving fried green tomatoes when my tomato seedlings are 2" high. Long time to wait!
Looks yummy.
I like to use green tomatoes in vegetable "stir frys". I flick out the seeds and cut the tomato flesh up roughly. It doesn't go mushy
yet sweetens with the cooking.
A message to Jaz : posting on others blog IS a good way to make yours known !
Ther just seems to be a big problem with your blog : everything is green and fuzzy...
Just wondering how you would use this in your cooking? Or do you use it like a relish?
thanks so much for leting me know about the problem with my blog. it didn't look that way on my computer so i was not aware of it. if you have time could you check it out and let me know if it looks better now? joyce
I make a (no meat) mincemeat with green tomatoes and pears. Got the recipe from "Fancy Pantry" by Helen Witty - probably out of print by now, but full of luscious ideas. - Una
I don't use a water bath, but do heat
both sugar and the jars in the oven at
about 100 celcius. This means that jars
can be filled with the hot pickle (what ever). The screws are sterilised quickly
by pouring boilg water over them.
I've not had a failure yet.
Tuxford.
I had green cherry and plum tomatoes coming out my ears last fall because I'd planted indeterminate vines and they produce until frost zaps them.
I kept picking them green, and putting them in my basement to ripen, but when the hard frost hit I had gallons still on the vines, so I just rinsed those fruits and put them into the freezer.
I did get tired of having tomatoes all over my house, so with some of the ones I'd picked green (but not frost-nipped) I made some pickle, like you would a sweet/spiced cucumber or beet pickle.
I used diced green tomatoes in place of diced apples, in a spiced apple cake recipe. It was pretty tasty. I plan on pureeing defrosted green tomatoes and using in spiced muffins. I also found a recipe online that calls for using pureed green tomatoes in place of raspberries plus raspberry gelatin mix, for a "refrigerator jam". A woman I know personally says it is quite delicious.
Next fall if I have this same dilemma I think I'll make some sort of sauce or salsa, since I finally have all the necessary parts for my pressure canner and won't have to fret about acidity.
Looking great, Jaz !
thanks so much! can you tell me how i can get on favorite blog lists on peoples blog pages?
I have been making green tomato salsa, which my kids LOVE. I also slice them on homemade pizza or add them to tomato sauce or stirfrys. We love green tomatoes.
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