Tomato Relish … or How To Stop Crying when Peeling Onions

To be honest, I was most surprised to collect this trug-full of tomatoes because weird things happened in the city garden. The tomato patch looks as if some sort of creeping-fungal-knob-rot has enveloped the entire area.

The garden ruin looks biblical to a Catholic so I’m doing reruns of past sins to discover which one is responsible for the crop failure. I’m tossing up between assisting in the theft of a king-sized bar of Caramello chocolate from the Big S supermarket (even though I did follow Father Duggan’s advice and purchase a bar and replace it on the supermarket shelf a week later); and putting on my big sister’s glamorous shoes and dancing up and down the driveway Shirley Temple-style (they had heel and toe plates so the sound they made was hypnotic) despite being told to STAY AWAY FROM HER THINGS AND OUT OF HER ROOM! And if either of these sins was punishable by crop failure then I’ve finally discovered the real reason for the Irish Potato Famine because God only knows how many disobedient children there were in Ireland in 1845.

Saturday night Mr Scott and I returned from a tasty meal out and I don’t know if it was too much wasabi or possibly some MSG sneaked into one of the dishes but I had an unexpected rush of enthusiasm and decided that around midnight is the ideal moment to make tomato relish. As you can see by the recipe at the end of the page one starts by chopping the tomatoes and onions and sprinkling them with salt to draw out the moisture.

I think the operative word here is sprinkle rather than dredge and I’m just warning you in advance that my relish will not get a tick from the Heart Foundation. It’s not the recipe which is to blame as much as my interpretation of it along with a hand rendered less responsive by a couple of wines.

Chopping the tomatoes went well though there were moments when I felt like chucking it all in and heading off to bed not so much through fatigue as boredom. But gosh, don’t things come to life when you start on the onions? December and January the onions were rubbish. They were soft and green inside and smelt like swamp water. Personally, I feel they were picked too early and not left out to harden-the-whatever up but don’t take this as gospel for I’m not one who knows my onions. But I do know that they have improved at last and so it was with a bit of trepidation that I moved to stage two of the recipe … chopping the onions.

I’m no ninja-knife person when it comes to chopping and slicing so my lack of speed meant I was positioned over the onions for longer than was comfortable for my eyes. And I know there are 20 different ways supposed to prevent crying over the onions but I have not found a method which actually works.

Until now.

Blame it on the alcohol if you wish but part way through Onion Number One, with a face covered in tears, I had an epiphany. I went to the bathroom, washed my face and rinsed and dried my eyes then I PUT ON MY SWIMMING GOGGLES! Internet … it works! Absolutely no more eye irritation. And then because I wasn’t having quite enough fun, I put my swimming cap on, too. Finally I finished the onions while softly humming lullabies and thinking about little lambs skipping through sun-filled meadows and all was right with the world.

Next day I drained off the water and continued to make relish.

This tomato relish recipe comes out of the universe and into your kitchens via my very wonderful friend Morag, who made a triumphant batch of relish last summer. I’m sorry my first effort hasn’t quite made the grade but it was all worth it to discover the solution to onion-eye-cry.

So grab your tomatoes, onions, swimming goggles and (optional) cap and get chopping.

TOMATO RELISH

6lb/3kg tomatoes

2lb/1kg onions

2lb/1kg sugar

8 small chillies

2 cups malt vinegar

3-4 tablespoons of cornflour

3 tablespoons of curry powder

2 tablespoons of salt

2 teaspoons mustard powder

METHOD

• Cut up tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with salt and leave overnight.
• Pour off liquid and add the toms/onions to a large pot. Barely cover with vinegar (about 2 cups). Put on heat, add sugar and chillies and boil for half an hour.
• Mix cornflour, curry powder and mustard powder in a little vinegar (or water if your pot mix has become a bit spicy) to a smooth paste.
• After tomatoes have boiled half an hour, add the paste, boil to thicken then bottle in sterilised jars.

WARNINGS

Don’t be too heavy-handed with the salt at number one. Taste the relish before adding any more salt. Actually, I’ve just gone back over my recipe notes and realised there is no place for adding more salt. I think the 2 tablespoons in the ingredients list is for sprinkling over the toms/onions right at the beginning. I got that completely wrong but it was difficult to read through the swimming goggles.