A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [232]
1999
Haussner’s German restaurant, a Baltimore institution for more than 70 years, closes. Its art collection is auctioned off—some of it at Sotheby’s in New York.
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GREEN TOMATO PICKLE RELISH
MAKES ABOUT 4 PINTS
Southern cooks find this spicy relish a handy way to use up the late-September glut of green tomatoes. With green tomato relish in the pantry, deviled eggs, potato salad, egg salad, and ham salad—southern favorites all—can be made in a hurry. In the old days, I used to chop all the vegetables by hand. I now use the food processor, taking care to chop everything in smallish batches (no more than two inches of vegetables in the work bowl at a time). Finally, I pulse each batch briskly until I get just the texture I want. Note: If this relish is to have the proper crunch, you must use hard green tomatoes and firm cucumbers. Kirby cucumbers, the small pickling variety, are the ones to use here. They’re usually unwaxed and available at most supermarkets.
8 cups (2 quarts) cored, peeled, and coarsely chopped hard green tomatoes (2½ to 3 pounds)
1 medium-large red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 medium-large green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
3 firm Kirby cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded, and coarsely chopped (see Note above)
½ cup pickling salt
1 cup sugar
1½ cups white (distilled) vinegar
1½ cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
2 tablespoons pickling spice blend, tied in cheesecloth (spice bag)
1. Place all the vegetables in a very large nonreactive bowl, sprinkle with the salt, and toss well. Cover and let stand overnight at room temperature. Next day, drain all in a large sieve and press out as much liquid as possible. Set aside.
2. Wash and rinse 4 one-pint preserving jars and their closures and submerge in a large kettle of boiling water.
3. Meanwhile, bring the sugar, white and cider vinegars, mustard seeds, and spice bag to a boil in a large nonreactive kettle. Adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles easily and cook uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring now and then. Mix in the drained vegetables and return to a boil. Remove the spice bag.
4. Lift the preserving jars from the boiling water one by one and ladle in enough hot relish to fill the jar to within ¼ inch of the top. Run a thin-blade spatula around the inside of the jar to release air bubbles; wipe the rim with a clean, damp cloth, then screw on the closure. Repeat until all the jars are filled. Tip: To avoid spilling or dribbling relish down the sides of the jars as you fill them, use a wide-mouth canning funnel.
5. Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (212° F.). Lift from the water bath; complete the seals, if needed, by tightening the lids, then cool to room temperature.
6. Date and label each jar, then store on a cool, dark shelf several weeks before opening.
DILLED SNAP BEANS
MAKES ABOUT 4 PINTS
Back when I was a junior food editor at The Ladies’ Home Journal in New York, two attractive young southern women came into our test kitchens one day bearing jars of snap beans that they’d pickled. They told us they’d used an old family recipe and hoped that we liked their “Dilly Beans” enough to write a little something about them because they aimed to market them. That was my first encounter with “Dilly Beans.” Those two Southerners didn’t share their family recipe—only jars of beans, which, thanks to our item about them, soon became everyone’s favorite low-cal cocktail food (each bean contains about one calorie). This recipe is my own.
2 pounds straight, tender, young green beans, tipped and cut into 4-inch lengths
4 garlic cloves, halved lengthwise
Eight 4-inch sprigs of fresh dill, washed and patted dry, or 4 teaspoons dill weed
1½ cups white (distilled) vinegar
1½ cups cider vinegar
1 cup water
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons pickling salt
½ teaspoon