This delicious Chow Recipe goes great with everything from brats to burgers, tuna salad to any grilled fish. Adjust the peppers for your heat preference.
I’ll talk about this amazing Chow Relish recipe in a minute, but let me take you back to the source of this beautiful condiment. The garden of my backyard neighbor and friend, Ann. If people who can take a patch of clumpy, barren soil and grow beautiful, healthy produce year after year truly had green thumbs, hers would be the deepest emerald green. Throughout the summer, I am benefactor to full bags of spinach, kale, squash, beets and tomatoes that she hands over the fence. Not to mention strawberries and raspberries. My own backyard farmer’s market!
As you can see, her garden has personality and beauty besides yielding a rewarding harvest, though she protests this has been a bad year…
I, on the other hand have given up. Actually, I’ve never really tried hard enough to give up. A couple of times I would start off with a bang and plant all variety of vegetables only to realize (too late) that I didn’t have the staying power to nurture the poor things and would lose them to weeds or too little water and not enough vitamins. I can grow sunflowers for the boys to meander through and my herb garden is “sufficient” to participate in my need for daily fresh ingredients in recipes. And I finally have ONE red tomato on the few tomato plants that Ann offered to plant after she took pity on me. Horticulture and me? We will remain strangers…
So, when Ann gave me a jar of this tangy Chow Relish, the first of several preserved jewels to come from her kitchen, I had to have the recipe and I’m sure you also need it. Made with hot and bell peppers, cabbage, mustard seeds and turmeric just to name a few of the perfect ingredients in this flavorful and nutritious condiment.
The relish can be simmered and then refrigerated for use within the week, but if you’re so inclined, take the next step and preserve it for enjoyment all year long. A good primer for beginners or experienced home canners on how to process produce in a water bath can be found at PickYourOwn.org.
The relish is delicious on brats, burgers and hot dogs. Or add to tuna or chicken salad for a healthy condiment option.
Do you have the luck of a green thumb? If not, hopefully you have a generous neighbor like I do, and that is the next best thing.
Chow Relish
Ingredients
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 2 cups chopped hot peppers of your choice, Jalapeños, a few Serrano, Hungarian wax. Adjust the variety for your heat preference
- 4 cups shredded cabbage
- 2 cucumbers, seeded and chopped
- 1 small grated carrot
- 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
- 1 ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¾ cup sugar
- ½ cup water
- 1 Tablespoon pickling or Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon celery seed
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon dill seed
- 1 teaspoon mustard seed
- 2 cloves minced garlic
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients in a large stock pot and bring to a rolling boil. Continue to boil for 4-8 minutes until vegetables just begin to soften and spices.
- Fill in 4 sterilized (washed in hot dishwasher) pint jars and keep in refrigerator up to one week or:
- Fill in sterilized pint jars and process in a water bath for 15 minutes.
- A good primer for beginners or experienced home canners on how to process produce in a water bath can be found at PickYourOwn.org.
Recipe from Ann Berg.
I make this every summer with veggies from the garden. Your neighbor has a beautiful garden! My family loves it as a relish for hotdogs. I always add jalapeños peppers for a nice kick.
Easy, healthy and delicious! I look forward to more recipes from GDM!
Hi, I’m from Louisiana and I noticed you didn’t have onion listed in the cucumber cabbage chow chow. Is this correct? If so, may I ask why?
Everything else, is exactly what I’m looking for.
Hi, this particular version didn’t have any onion in it but you could definitely add onion to it!
Sally—here’s the irony…my sunflowers all died! I’m remaining eternally optimistic that we’ll both enjoy a late tomato windfall. Meet at the fence this week end if you want more kale and Swiss chard.
As if I wasn’t bummed enough and missing all my friends in Utah, now I missing out on Ann’s chow relish! Poor me!! Looks fantastic 🙂