Restaurant Recipe Reviews

This particular chow chow recipe is truly a favorite for a lot of Southerners. It’s a good condiment on also good with hamburgers, sausages and hot dogs. Chow-chow is a little bit spicy vegetable relish which contains mustard.

It is usually made with green tomatoes, cabbage, mustard seed, onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, and vinegar. Other optional ingredients include cucumbers, celery, carrots, beans, corn and also cauliflower. However, the ingredients are by no means “strict” and nearly any leftover fresh vegetables could be used including radishes and even red tomatoes in a pinch.

The term “relish” is from the expression “reles” which means “something remaining” in old French, which makes sense with this kind of dish since the ingredients can be changed around so much. Regardless of where chow-chow originated, what is clear is that Southerners have been using it as a condiments for hundreds of years.

Ingredients for chow chow:

9 pounds of green tomatoes
six lbs . white or yellow onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
one cup of salt
six cups of water
four cups of white wine vinegar
4 tbsps . of pickling herbs
two 1/2 lbs white sugar
2 1/2 lbs light brown sugar
1/2 cup of corn starch
two teaspoons of dry mustard
one tsp of turmeric
1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely diced
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely minced

Directions:

Put your green tomatoes & onions in the largest non-reactive bowl you can find. 9 cups of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes and the acid in the tomatoes might have an unfavorable reaction to some bowls. Add 4 cups of water and all of the salt. Allow the tomato, water and salt mixture to sit over night (eight hours, even though a dozen hours is best), covered up within the fridge.

Strain really well inside a colander after which you’ll put tomatoes and onions into a large cooking pot along with the white vinegar, 2 cups of water and pickling spice.

Bring to a boil on top of the stove on high temperature then lower temperature to low and simmer for half-hour. Incorporate all of the white and brown sugars and permit to simmer for another half-hour.

In another bowl, stir the cornstarch, mustard and tumeric and sprinkle into the pot. Add in the diced red bell pepper and garlic cloves and simmer for an additional 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until thick. Let cool to room temperature and then store the relish in air tight containers up to six months in the fridge.

Learn more about making pickled okra or get a hush puppies recipes here.