Salsa/Sauces

[melody]

This recipe is a treasured heirloom...it is actually from the Carter Family of American Country Music fame. My husband and I travel a bit around the country as he plays guitar with folks at old timey festivals and such. We met up with an older gentleman several years ago named Sonny Rodgers. Sonny's dad and Jimmy Rodgers (father of modern country music) were cousins. It seems that Jimmy and the Carter Family toured together back in the olden days, and the Rodgers family was given the Carter Family Chow Chow Recipe. Sonny gave me a jar of it and the recipe one year, and I am eternally grateful.

Mother Maybelle Carter's Chow Chow

1 gallon green tomatoes(I used 1 gallon whole,before cutting)
1 head cabbage
3 sweet peppers
2 large onions
6 ears of corn(cut off cob)
6 large carrots
1/2 cup canning salt
3 cups packed brown sugar
3 Tblsp nutmeg
2 Tblsp horseradish
2 Tblsp mustard seed
1 Tblsp celery seed
1 quart vinegar

Chop and mix vegetables with salt.Let stand overnight.Drain well..
Mix sugar,seasonings and vinegar,Boil 1 minute.
Add vegetables,bring to boil.Boil 2 minutes.Stir to mix everything while cooking.
Take off heat and pack into jars and seal.

Now the recipe did not call for it,but I processed in boiling water bath for 7 minutes. Just good practice...and they did not think of such back then.


For a prettier presentation, I chopped and sliced the veggies in different ways, the jar I was given was pretty much ground up to about the same size pieces. I chopped the tomatoes, sliced the cabbage into shreds, left the carrots in rounds, sliced the onions into rings and the peppers into longer strips. It really looked nice in the jars that way.

[coronabarb]

TOMATO PASTE - Posted by Woodenzoo
Yield: about 9 half-pint jars

8 quarts peeled, cored chopped tomatoes (about 4 dozen large)
1 1/2 cups chopped sweet red peppers (about 3)
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon canning or pickling salt
1 clove garlic (optional)

Procedure: Hot Pack

Combine first four ingredients and cook slowly 1 hour. Press through a fine sieve. Add garlic clove, if desired. Continue cooking slowly until thick enough to round up on a spoon, about 2 1/2 hours. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Remove garlic clove and bay leaves.

Pour boiling hot paste into hot half pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel; adjust two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a Boiling Water Canner.

Recommended process time for Tomato Paste in a boiling-water canner.
Style of Pack: Hot / Jar Size: Half-pints

Process Time at Altitudes of:
0 - 1,000 ft - 45 minutes
1,001 - 3,000 ft - 50 minutes
3,001 - 6,000 ft - 55 minutes
Above 6,000 ft - 60 minutes

Source: USDA
This document was extracted from So Easy to Preserve, 4th ed. 1999. Bulletin 989, Cooperative Extension Service, The University of Georgia, Athens. Revised by Elizabeth L.

SEASONED TOMATO PASTE
Printed from COOKS.COM

Making your own tomato paste is an economical way to "put up" tomatoes. Use this seasoned paste for any recipe that calls for canned tomato paste. 4 lg. red or green bell peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped 3 med. size onions, coarsely chopped 4 med. size carrots, coarsely chopped 2 or 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
In a blender or food processor, whirl tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, and garlic, a small amount at a time, until smooth. Press through a wire strainer and discard pulp.

In a 12 quart pot, bring puree to boiling over medium high heat. Boil gently, uncovered and stirring occasionally, for about 5 hours or until thick enough to mound on a spoon. As mixture thickens, stir often, reduce heat, and partially cover.

Prepare 5 pint size canning jars, using the water bath method with a Canning Kettle, filling jars to within 1/4 inch of rim. Process for 30 minutes. Makes 5 pints.

[Miss Sphinx]

Red Tomato Chutney
from "Preserving" by Oded Schwartz

3 Tblsp peanut or sesame oil
2 onions, coarsely chopped
1 head garlic, coarsely chopped
6 Tblsp finely shredded fresh ginger
2-3 fresh red chilies, seeded and cut into thick strips
2 lbs firm plum or beefsteak tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
3/4 cup jaggery or light brown sugar
1 cup red wine vinegar
6 cardamom pods
1 bunch basil or mint, chopped

Heat the oil in a noncorrosive saucepan and add the onions, garlic, ginger, and chilies, if using. Cook over low hear for 5 minutes, or until the onions just start to color. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes, or until soft.

Add the sugar and vinegar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 25-30 minutes, stirring frequently, until it is thick and most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat.

Grind the cardamom pods in the spice mill or coffee grinder. Add to the chutney through a sieve and stir in the basil or mint.

Ladle into hot, sterilized jars, then seal. The chutney will be ready to eat in about 1 month, but improves with age.

Yield: about 2 pints

[Farmette]

I have used Annie's Salsa recipe, but would like to make some without tomato sauce or paste. I know I have to use lime, lemon or vinegar, but do I have to heat the salsa before putting it in the water bath? I am looking to use up more tomatoes, but want to keep the fresh taste in my salsa.
Thanks
Chris

[Worth1]

No you don’t have to cook/heat up the salsa I never do and I’m not dead yet.
Of course I was raised on a farm ran barefoot and kissed my pet Brahman bull on the lips thusly I have a very good immune system.
That isn’t so as botulism poison is a byproduct of the bacteria and highly toxic, it is anaerobic which means it thrives in the absence of free oxygen.
The bacteria fails to multiply if the acidity is kept at or below 4.6, this means that no matter how many cows I kissed I can still die from it as easily as anybody else it is the toxin that does the dirty work.

There are many web sites that can tell you how to make salsa from tomatoes.
And quite a few right here at Tomatoville

Just follow the directions and have fun, canning should not be a scary thing with constant worry about whether or not you will get poisoned.
Keep things clean and keep plenty of bleach on hand.
Keep your hands clean and all of your utensils clean and sterile.
I can promise you that if you even half way try to keep things clean you will be much cleaner than many processing plants.

I don’t want this to sound like a lecture and I hope it doesn’t I just wanted to put some very important facts out there so folks can see them.
I was raised canning and that is all we ate, home grown beef, chickens, rabbits, ducks, fish, pork and veggies.
At about 9, I was in charge of butter and eggs at about 13, I was in charge of the pickling.
I really miss home made butter, you just cant buy the stuff.
I have spent all of my life in the kitchen and love every minute of it and love to help folks any way I can.

PS, I have never used tomato sauce or paste in my salsa, I cant stand the stuff.
Good cooking.

Worth

[mjc]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I really miss home made butter, you just cant buy the stuff.

A little OT...but around here and in in parts of PA and OH, you can get Amish butter...and that is pretty darn close to homemade...but yeah, I know what you mean (except when the cows got into the ramps...then you could beat it with cheap margarine...)

[Farmette]

I have used the posts here on T'ville to make salsa...and the one I used for canning was one with paste, etc. Now that I know I can put up some pints of the fresh stuff, I will certainly do so. Thanks for all the good info, Worth. I value your feedback.

[TZ-OH6]

My Peruvian Pointer pepper plants were super productive (10 gallons of peppers from 3 plants) so I fiddled around with them and figured out a recipe that is quite close to the famous Huy Fong Sriracha "Rooster" sauce. If you've never had that sauce it is addictive even for people who aren't Chili Heads.



Mock Huy Fong Sriracha "Rooster" sauce

4-5 cups (~1 lb) Fresh whole red Jalapenos/Peruvian Pointer/, etc. peppers.
1 med-lg garlic bulb =1/3-1/2 cup cloves, crushed and chopped (don't bother peeling since it all will be strained)
1 cup water
1.5 tsp seasalt/kosher salt
Boil 5-10 min to soften
Blend and strain/press through a wire seive
1 Tbs sugar
6 Tbs=3oz white vinegar (tasted funny with cider vinegar)
Simmer to thicken...It should be the consistency of Catsup.

Makes a little over 1-1/2 cups




Disclaimer:
I don't know what the pH of this is so if you want to can or keep it out on the table unrefrigerated you may have to adjust the vinegar. I also do not know what the shelf life of this is in the refrigerator.



Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce is an American product invented by a Vietnamese man, made with Mexican Peppers (red Jalapenos), named after a Thai table sauce (Sriracha) and the ship the man came to America on (Huy Fong). But it has a picture of a rooster on the bottle so everybody just calls it "rooster sauce".


Anybody else have a good hot sauce recipe?

[TomNJ]

Looks like a tasty recipe.

Capsaicin is an oil that has very low solubility in water, but is quite soluble in alcohol. Therefore you may get a hotter sauce if you add say a half cup of vodka in place of some of the water prior to boiling.

TomNJ

[TZ-OH6]

I pretty much stuck with the original ingredients to get the original flavor. The peppers I used are a bit hotter than jalapenos though. Rooster sauce is not supposed to be overly hot, which is why it is so popular.


I do have tons of flavorless super hot peppers (habaneros etc) from this cool summer, which might get soaked in a bottle of vodka or rum to make an extract. They are not good for much else.

[TZ-OH6]

Here is something you can do with your unripe end of season hot peppers, hot ornamental peppers, and slightly moldy/buggy hot peppers. It helps to have a dehydrator but you could use the oven on low for drying and reducing the liquid.

Pepper/Capcaisin Extract:

--3-5 cups of dried flakes/crushed peppers (about a gallon ziplock full of dried whole/half habanero sized peppers before crushing). The blender-food processor works good for crushing the peppers. You could do this with or without the booze (dry or wet)
--75 ml bottle of cheapest vodka or white rum (80 proof). Add more water if needed.

Soak peppers in booze over night, drain, and press out liquid in a wire sieve.

Strain liquid through clean cloth (coffee filters get clogged by the fine sediment).

Place liquid in a shallow dish (glass brownie pan etc) and reduce in dehydrator or oven. It only took a half a day on the jerky setting of my dehydrator to reduce the liquid by more than half. (I also re dehydrated the pepper flakes since they still retained alot of heat)

I ended up with about a half of a cup of extract from a bottle of white rum.


So why make this stuff? ...It is a nice addition to certain beverages. I dip a teaspoon in the jar of extract to coat it an then stir it into the liquid. My favorites so far...


--Hot chocolate. Some chocolates have a bit of a bite anyway and this enhances that.

--Cheap jug Sangria. I never would have though that it would turn out this good. Iced sangria with a kick.

--Bourbon.

and of course you could add it to your to high-end vodka without having to pay for a whole bottle of Absolut Peppar

Possibly ice cream? Dipping the spoon in the extract rather than putting the extract on the ice cream might be best.

Dipped toothpicks (fire sticks) for you hot heads (not for me).

?Dipped cinnamon sticks for holiday gifts to other chiliheads?

If you like Red Hot candies you can kick them up a notch or three.



You could also use it in sprays to keep deer away from your vegetables, but soaking the pepper flakes in cheaper rubbing alcohol (not edible) and not reducing it would be easier and cheaper.


The hard core amature/Pro-Am hotsauce makers use ultra hot varieties(Bhut Jolokias, Trinidad scorpions etc) and Everclear grain alcohol or 151 rum to get dangerously hot extract (dangerously hot and dangerous to make). What I'm suggesting here is an easy, inexpensive way to get a useful culinary product out of peppers that are not good for much else.

[stevenkh1]

Does anyone care to post some of their creations?

[neoguy]

Here is one I've used for years, it's easy and doesn't have to be canned. I use whatever peppers I have on hand and I use more than the recipe calls for, you can make it as hot as you want. I usually make a triple or quadruple batch.

Fire Water

Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence
Prep Time: 5 min
Inactive Prep Time: hr min
Cook Time: 30 min
Level: Easy
Serves: 1 cup
Ingredients

• 12 cayenne chiles, stems removed
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Directions

Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and slowly bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Pour the mixture into a blender and puree until smooth. Pass the hot sauce through a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth, if desired.


Printed from FoodNetwork.com
Scripps Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Tue Feb 23 2010
© 2010 Scripps Networks, LLC. All Rights

[TZ-OH6]

A while back I posted some in this thread in the harvest section

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=12550

[bboomer]

An amazing but simple recipe from my uncle:

Uncle Pepe Muñiz’s Chile Recipe

1. Chile – Your choice depending on what kind of chile you want.

a. Chile Arbol (NM hot-dry) as much as you dare. Pulverize in the blender. Do this first.

b. Chile Japonese (NM hot-dry) . Same as above.

c. Green Chiles (fresh): Jalapenos or others of your choice. [I believe they must come from Hatch, NM]


2. White Onion. One large or as much as you like.

3. Green onions. Three or four whole.

4. Tomatillo. Two or three depending on size.

5. Fresh Cilantro. One half of a bunch.

6. Canned tomatoes. Small can. Plain, no spices added. My Uncle Pepe recommends Hunts brand tomatoes.

7. Tomato sauce. One small can. Plain, no spices added. Hunts brand.

8. Garlic fresh. As much as you like

9. Salt 1/2 tsp.

10. Water to desired thickness.


Blend all ingredients. That’s it!


The fun is in the experimentation. Of course, fresh tomatoes are better!

I have more recipies if anyone is interested!