This is a recipe for a home-canned corn relish with a bit of a Tex-Mex slant on it.
This is a very easy relish to make especially if you avail yourself of the cheats: thawed frozen corn, and canned diced tomatoes.
The recipe
If you wish to adjust batch size, do the math first on paper.
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)
Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 15 minutes either size jar
Southwestern Corn Relish
Ingredients
- 600 g corn kernels (frozen or fresh. 4 cups / 1 US quart / 21 oz in weight)
- 750 ml tomatoes (diced. Drained from a can is fine. 3 cups / 24 oz)
- 150 g onion (chopped. 1 cup, 5 oz. 1 large)
- 250 g green bell pepper (seeded, chopped. 1 ½ cups, 8 oz. 1 large)
- 125 g red bell pepper (seeded, chopped. ¾ cup, 4 oz. 1 medium)
- 100 g sugar (white. ½ cup / 4 oz)
- 500 ml cider vinegar (cider vinegar, 5% acidity or higher. 2 cups / 16 oz)
- 1 tablespoon pickling salt
- 2 tablespoons mustard seed
- 1 teaspoon chile flakes (optional)
- liquid smoke (few drops, optional)
Instructions
- Zap the frozen corn niblets in the microwave with some water just until they are all thawed and no cold spots are left. About 5 to 6 minutes should do it. Drain well.
- Add to a large pot, along with all the other ingredients down to and including the chile flakes.
- Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 30 minutes.
- Add liquid smoke to taste, if using.
- Pack hot into quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars or half-litre (US pint) jars.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process either size jar for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
- Best after at least a few weeks of jar time.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
Recipe notes
- For the canned tomatoes, you’ll want about 1200 ml (42 oz) canned tomatoes, before draining. If you are in North America, that’s 1 + ½ tins that are 800 ml (28 oz) each. You don’t need to go crazy pressing the liquid out of the tomatoes, just get out what comes out easily without a lot of excessive pressing. You’ll want to end up with between 600 and 700 g (21 to 24 oz) of tomato that you’re adding to the pot, if you are using canned.
- Feel free to increase the heat by adding more chile flake. You might also wish to add in some cayenne pepper, or some ground dried cumin.
- Do not use any starch thickener to thicken this; it could affect heat penetrating properly to the centre of the jars during processing.
- Tip: add the drained-off corn water and tomato juice to a tub in the freezer for making soup stock from.
- Instead of the salt, you can use a non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub. We have found Herbamare Sodium-Free to meet those requirements.
- You can reduce the sugar, or use the same volume amount of granulated Splenda®, or use 1 teaspoon of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia .
Recipe source
Corn Relish with Tomatoes. Ziedrich, Linda. The Joy of Pickling. Boston, Massachusetts: The Harvard Common Press. 2009. Page 318.
Modifications made:
- Added flavouring of chile flakes and liquid smoke;
- Devised off-season alternatives for using frozen corn and tinned tomatoes.
To make original recipe: Use corn kernels scraped from 9 cobs of corn (making about 1 litre / US quart in volume). Skip the microwave warming phase. Just use them direct. Use a volume of 750 ml (3 cups / 24 oz) of seeded, diced fresh tomato: Ziedrich advises to gently squeeze out some excess liquid from them.
Safety Check
Southwestern Corn Relish has a pH of 4.01, tested using 25 g solids, 50 ml distilled water. Well below upper safety cut-off of 4.6 pH.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 21 calories, 106 mg sodium
Sugar and Salt Free Version
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 14 calories, 4 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 2 tablespoons: 0 points; 2 to 8 tablespoons: 1 point.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
* Herbamare ® is a registered trademark of the A. Vogel Corporation.
* Pickle Crisp ® is a registered trademark of the Jarden Corporation.
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