Zucchini Relish
The joke is that in late summer you have to lock your car when attending church, or someone will leave a basket of zucchini in your car. In my youth, my mother made this zucchini relish, which at the time I believed was absolutely the best, most perfect, delicious, and only use for zucchini squash. While my mother got the recipe from Doris Morgan, and modified it some, and I have likewise modified my mother’s recipe; but here is the straight stuff from Doris.
Ingredients
12 cups Zucchini, peeled and coarsely grated or ground in a food processor
4 medium onions, chopped (if you grind them you will lose the juice)
4 carrots, coarse grated
5 TBS pickling salt
2 ½ cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp dry mustard
2 green bell peppers
2 red bell peppers
1 tsp celery seed
½ tsp black pepper
4 TBS corn starch
Sprinkle salt over the zucchini, onion, carrot mixture and let sit
Sprinkle salt over the zucchini, onion, carrot mixture and let sit overnitght.
Next day, wash off salt and drain. In a large kettle add the vinegar, sugar, and nutmeg, turmeric, and dry mustard. Bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar, and add the zucchini-onion-carrot mix. Then add the finely chopped red and green peppers.
Boil 2 minutes, then add celery seed, black pepper, and cornstarch to a cup of the vinegary broth separately until smooth, and add back to the kettle (to thicken and not make lumps). Boil 10 minutes to thicken, and then put in jars to seal. (Doris didn’t use a hot water bath but my mother does for 5 minutes.
It is a very colorful relish with the carrots, bell peppers, and tumeric adding contrasting hues. One can leave the zucchini unpeeled to add green.
Modifications:
I have been known to make this with other squash like summer squash—the above picture was last years relish made from over half summer squash, the remainder being zucchini. One year, I diced the onions large and called it sweet zucchini salsa and served with tortilla chips. I usually add red pepper flakes in addition to black pepper.
