Saffron Tomato Relish

JustJanS's Note:

I love this stuff and buy jars and jars of it. It's expensive, so I was excited to find it in a new cookbook my DIL had been given recently. In her blurb on the recipe, Maggie suggests it would be great over couscous, on top of grilled poultry or fish, on crackers and cheese, and we especially love it with cold meats and on sandwiches. Tomatoes are easy to skin if you cut a shallow cross in their bottoms, place them in a bowl and pour boiling water over. Count to 30 then drain the water off them. Leave to cool for a few minutes. You should now be able to peel them from the cross.

• Total Time: 2 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 2 hrs

Ingredients:

Yield: 2 cups

• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 700 ml verjuice
• 1 pinch saffron thread
• 600 g roma tomatoes, skinned (see the intro)
• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1. Place sugar and verjuice in a stainless steel saucepan and stir over a low heat until sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil over high heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until reduced and syrupy. Remove from the heat, add the saffron threads and leave to infuse for 5 minutes.
2. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook for ten minutes or until softened. Add the tomatoes, verjuice, saffron syrup and cook over low heat for 1 1/2 -2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the syrup has reduced and thickened. Season with the salt and pepper.
3. Immediately transfer to a sterilised 500ml jar and seal, then turn upside down to ensure lid is sterislised by the hot mixture. You might like to can this in a hot water bath, but I won't be doing that, so I can't advise how it's done.
4. Relish will keep in the refrigerator for a few months once opened or unopened in a cool place for up to a year.

Reviews

[Rinshinomori]

This is totally awesome taste. Great on it's own, but also wonderful when used in other dishes to boost the taste of tomatoes or tomato sauce. I used 1/2 C of this relish with regular tomatoes in making stuffed green peppers and they came out so wonderful. Thank you so much for posting this wonderful recipe Jan!

[French Tart]

This is a stunning recipe, and I do not say that lightly Jan, as I am an avid chutney, pickle, relish and jam maker! It delivered on ALL of my criteria for a good savoury preserve: flavour, multi-layered flavours, colour, texture and of course overall taste. I was so confident that I would like this relish, that I doubled the recipe. I made it exactly as posted, and the only slight variation to the the method, (that I found) was that mine only took 1 hour to reduce to the right consistency. (Even though I doubled the ingredients.) I am a HUGE lover of Verjus, as we call it in France, and make my own every year with the grapes from my grapevine - they are not dessert grapes, so they work well for verjus. The verjus syrup is the secret to this relish recipe, along with the subtle saffron flavour and glorious rich colour. I am going to make more of this relish as Christmas gifts for my "foodie" family and friends; one of the best preserve recipes I have come across, absolutely delicious on fresh bread with cheese, as we tried it today. A huge thanks to you Jan for posting this, BTW, the salt amount was post on, I obviously doubled the amount for my increased quantity, but it was just right. Oh yes, I almost forgot - I used smoked garlic in this, I think that might be a little tweak you may enjoy when you make this! Made for Make my Recipe in the Aus/NZ forum. Merci encore. FT:-)