DIP - Pantry Tomato & Cranberry Relish

By Aemelia

Ingredients

• 6 – 8 garlic cloves (depending on the size & your preference), roughly chopped
• 5 about 5 cm (2 inches) piece of ginger, peeled & roughly chopped
• 2 x 400g/14 ounces canned chopped tomatoes
• 310 ml/10.4 fluid ounces (1.25 cups) clear vinegar
• 350 g/ 12 ounces soft brown sugar
• 2 tbsps dried cranberries (aka craisins) – original recipe calls for raisins (aka sultanas)
• 2 tsps salt
• chilli powder (optional) – which I have omitted

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from fussfreecooking.com

Preparation

Step 1

(1) Fill a food processor with garlic, ginger and some canned chopped tomatoes – see Note 1. Blend until smooth…like smoothie. Set aside. (2) Meanwhile, fill a pot with the remaining canned tomatoes, dried cranberries, brown sugar, salt and vinegar. Bring the mixture to the boil over medium heat and then add the ginger-garlic-tomatoes mixture. (3) Reduce the heat to allow the mixture to simmer gently for 1.5 hours, stirring occassionally, until the mixture is thick enough… resembling a thick jam – See Note 2. (4) Add cayenne pepper to taste should you wish to do so. (5) Leave to cool, then pour into sterilized jars (as per the recipe book: wash the jars in boiling water and dry them in a warm oven). Store in cool place or in the fridge after opening.

Note 1 – The recipe says half the tomatoes but depending on the size of your food processor (mine is a really small one), just pour enough to fill up the food processor (no more than 1 can). Adding liquid will help to blend the ginger and garlic into very fine pieces. For this recipe, the canned tomatoes is the “liquid”.

Note 2 – I let the mixture simmer uncovered. When the mixture became really thick (about the last half hour of cooking time) and started to splatter a little, I place the pot cover, tilted to aside and continue to finish cooking. This way it will reduce the splatter around the kitchen area, allowing the mixture to reduce at the same time. The thicker the mixture, the more likely it is going to stick and burn. So towards the last half hour (apprx) of cooking time, you basically need to stand by the pot to stir gently.