The Peppers

We had an unusually hot and dry summer in New Jersey. While the Manasquan aquifer contained plenty of water, the amount of electricity required to pump the water from 250 feet below ground to the garden twice a week would have been astronomical. So the garden had to get by on less-frequent waterings. Not surprisingly, one of our most successful crops was peppers. We had planted Bell, Hungarian, Banana, and an extra hot type called del Sol. That's all the tag on the plants read and I thought, "Mmmm. What a pretty name." We ate peppers stuffed with Boursin cheese, peppers sauteed with sausages, peppers, peppers in spaghetti sauce. We ate lots of peppers. Then we thought about storing them for the winter. We froze them whole in Ziploc bags. And I made a big batch of Cuddin' (Mississippiese for Cousin) Mittie's Chillie Sauce--an old family recipe with tomatoes, peppers, onions, sugar and vinegar. Mama (that's pronounced Mehmaw--my grandmother, Lula) made this every year and we ate it on butterbeans and black-eyed peas. Momma (as in my mother, Rita) still makes it and has created a tasty cheese cornbread with it. The recipe in my file is in my juvenile handwriting and likely copied verbatim from Mama's. I still know neither the size of a water bucket nor how many tomatoes it would take to fill a water bucket. I usually just go with about a half-gallon of peeled, chopped tomatoes. And as far as the directions go, you just have to know what you're doing. If you're a cook, you'll figure it out.

Mittie’s Chillie Sauce
Lula Lewis Chatham via Mittie Chatham

Ø water bucket full of tomatoes
Ø 12 pods hot pepper
Ø 6 onions
Ø 1 quart cider vinegar
Ø 4 cups sugar
Ø pickling spices in cheesecloth

Simmer 2 hours, 20 minutes. Put in sterilized jars and seal.

Later in the pepper season, Ted was looking at one of our cookbooks and found a recipe for a famous Garden Hot Sauce. So we made it. Of course, I, Southern boy that I am, love it and eat it on everything from scrambled eggs to tacos to pizza to pasta. It's a bit fiery for Ted's taste. We call it Hotter'n Sauce--the diner gets to decide what it's hotter'n.. Be forewarned... I have since found out that the full name of the prettily-named pepper is Serrano del Sol. It's hotter'n a snake's butt in a wagon rut. Hotter'n whoopee in woolens. You get the idea.
The hot sauce is especially tasty on collard and turnip greens. With cornbread and a big glass of ice-cold buttermilk. And sliced Vidalia onions.
Apologies to Commander's Palace for the bastardization of their recipe.



Hotter’n Pepper Sauce
adapted from the Commander’s Kitchen cookbook

Ø 1 ½ pounds ripe hot peppers (cayenne, jalapeno, habaneros, etc., or a combination)
Ø 1 cup kosher salt
Ø 3 cups white vinegar (I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but we used cider vinegar)

Rinse the peppers with cold water and dry them with a paper towel. Remove the stems and chop them coarsely. Place the chopped peppers in a stainless bowl, sprinkle the salt on top, stir, cover with plastic wrap and place in a cool, dry area for two days, stir every 12 hours. All that salt is there mostly to promote ripening of the peppers. Add the vinegar, and puree with a hand blender or in a food processor. (We strained out the seeds and pulp at this point. Dear Lord, it probably would've gone down like molten lava if we hadn’t.) Place in a sterilized glass jar with a fresh lid and refrigerate. As time goes by, whenever you have an excess of red peppers, again wash, remove stems, chop and add to the jar. (The salting step isn’t necessary for these additions.) When the jar is filled, remove the sauce, puree if you wish , place in a clean jar and age it until it reaches the desired flavor—at least 2 months, or longer. (I liked it “green”—with no aging whatsoever. But it does get better with time.)
The “duh” note: Use rubber gloves when handling the peppers, or wash your hands thoroughly before your eyes or any skin. A special “duh” note for men: If you opt to not use gloves and at some point later need to go to the bathroom, don’t touch yourself. Anywhere. Trust me. But it does get better with time.
Yields about 2 pints.

The Green Tomato

Since I’m a Southerner, everyone assumes I have an innate love of fried green tomatoes. I do like them, especially when paired with shrimp remoulade, but I don’t consider myself an aficionado. This year, our garden produced a bounty of tomatoes. Ted made every conceivable sauce with the ripe ones while I was in Alabama. When I got home to New Jersey, I was faced with a sea of green tomatoes that had no chance of ripening before the first frost. What to do? A quick Google of “green tomato recipes” yielded 1,790,000 results. Having little time for experimentation, I remembered my friend Rebecca going on and on about this green tomato chutney recipe that her friend in England had given her. And Ted remembered the green tomato pickles his mom had made when he was a child. So my agenda for the day was set.

Green Tomato Chutney

courtesy of some unnamed Brit via Rebecca Williamson, translated by me

This chutney recipe was written for the English, so I had to first convert all the measurements to cups from pounds. Knowing just a wee bit about chemistry and math, I knew that each ingredient had a different density, so I had to spend some time on the computer to get the correct conversion factors. The rest was easy.

Ø 1 pound apples, peeled, cored and minced (that’s roughly 3 medium apples, 3 cups sliced apples—I used Granny Smith)

Ø ½ pound onions, minced (according to the internet, 2 ½ cups equals 1 pound, so I used 1 ¼ cups

Ø 3 pounds green tomatoes, thinly sliced (that’s 7 ¼ cups to be exact)

Ø ½ pound sultanas (First, I had to confirm my suspicion that a sultana is a white seedless raisin. To confuse matters, the raisins came in a 15 ounce box. So I counted all the raisins in the box and divided 15 ounces by that number to determine that a raisin weighs about .035 ounces. Dividing 8 ounces, 1/2 pound, by .035 equals 228 ½ raisins. So, again, I counted. I supposed it would have been easier to guesstimate and toss in about a half box.)

Ø ½ pound demerara sugar (By this point, I was getting a little frustrated. 1 cup of dark brown sugar was what I deemed appropriate given that I wasn’t too keen on driving around Bordentown Township looking for demerara sugar.) Note: after Ted proofed this post, he informed me that demerara sugar was indeed available at the local Acme. But we decided that this chutney was so tasty we would stick with my recipe amendment.

Ø 2 teaspoons salt (Thank God. Something easy. But wait. Iodized? Kosher? Sea? Canning? I went with kosher salt knowing that iodized salt makes canned goods darken and look unappealing over time.)

Ø ¾ pint malt vinegar (Now, who the hell has malt vinegar in the pantry? I mean, besides me? Three-fourths of a pint equals 1 ½ cups.)

Ø 4 small pieces of root ginger (Again, I say: Who the hell has root ginger in the fridge? Of course, I do. Given the preciseness of this recipe, I have to wonder why I was not given a more specific measurement than “small pieces.” I opted for four ¾” cubes.)

Ø 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (Easy enough.)

Ø 1 teaspoon dry mustard (I’m guessing none of the run-of-the-mill mustards is good enough for this recipe, so I used Colman’s. This chutney should be fit for a queen. Or a gaggle of queens.)

Dump all the stuff in a Dutch oven and simmer until thick. Again, that’s pretty vague, so go with 2 ½ hours. Then fish out the ginger pieces if you can find them. Ladle the hot chutney into properly-sanitized pint jars, put on the lids and rings and process in a water bath for 20 minutes. Specific canning instructions can be found on the Ball website.

Yields about 4 pints. Roughly.

Oh. And I was kidding about the whole counting raisins thing.

The chutney whilst cooking and the finished product...

Now, I profess to LOVING pickled okra in all its different varieties. Our okra plants, while prolific, didn’t seem to be in sync with one another. There was never a day when we had enough okra to make gumbo, much less pickled okra. So I thought I’d surprise Ted with his momma’s green tomato pickles.

Green Tomato Pickles

Courtesy of the Collected Recipes of Betty Ann Lange or the internet. I can’t remember.

Ø 5 pounds of nice firm green tomatoes (As opposed, I suppose, to rotten, mushy, green tomatoes. I don’t know how many tomatoes are in 5 pounds, but using the conversion factor in the precious recipe, you should have at least 12.083 cups. Or just a big ole pile of them.)

Ø Fresh dill or dill seed (In my own Scarlett-O’Hara “if-I-have-to-lie-steal-cheat-or-kill-as-God-is-my-witness-I’ll-never-be-hungry-again” moment, I scrounged around the barren garden and found some scraggly remnants of dill.)

Ø Cloves of garlic

Ø Cloves (Whole. The spice. Not to be confused with cloves of garlic. Stay with me. This can get confusing.)

Ø 4 cups of apple cider vinegar (When you’re cooking with me or if you get a sunburn or the dog relieves himself on the Karastan, it’s handy to keep a pretty diverse stock of vinegars on hand.)

Ø 4 cups of water (From the tap should be just fine. But in the South, branch water—the kind you have with your bourbon—would be preferable. Ask my friend Sandra Cameron.)

Ø 1/3 cup of salt (Kosher salt is just dandy. Under no circumstance should you use iodized salt. Unless you happen to have a goiter.)

Here’s the fun part:

Make the brine by mixing the water, vinegar and salt and heating until all the salt is dissolved. Keep it hot. We’re pickling here.

Line up five quart mason jars (all sterilized and mouths pointed skyward—some people really need specificity). Into each jar plop a clove of garlic, a clove, (remember: avoid confusion here), a sprig or three of dill—the flower heads add an especially rustic touch—and, if you’re feeling adventurous, a jalapeno pepper or two that you’ve poked holes in with a bamboo skewer. I don’t think the bamboo skewer part is of great importance. Then pack the jars with green tomatoes that have been sliced or halved or quartered depending on their size. The slices should be no thicker than ½”. Pour hot brine into each jar and jiggle the jar to release air bubbles. Leave about ½” of space between the rim of the jar and the brine. Put the lids and rings on the jars and then process in a water bath for about 20 minutes. Remove the jars from the water bath, let cool and listen for the heavenly intonations of popping lids that signal canning success.

Now for the hard part:

You have to let them sit, undisturbed for at least a month while the pickle fairy does her work.

Since people these days place such a high value on their time, running down to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up some pickles and some chutney is much more cost effective than making all this from scratch. But it’s not rewarding. We’ll be enjoying all these rewards until tomato-planting time rolls around again in April.