Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580

September 6, 2006:  Preserving the Summer's Abundance — Piccalilli and Chow-Chow

Cut vegetables into desired size.  Cook each one separately until tender.  Mix together; add the sugar, salt, mustard, and vinegar.  Bring to a boil.  Add flour and turmeric that have been mixed with half a cup of water.  Bring to a boil again.  When slightly thickened, pack into jars.

From Mennonite Community Cookbook: Favorite Family Recipes by Mary Emma Showalter and Naomi Nissley (Herald Press, 1992; ISBN 083613625X)

PICCALLI WITH HORSERADISH

• 20 green tomatoes

• 1 large green bell pepper

• 1 large red bell pepper

• 1 cup Kosher salt

• 6 cups vinegar

• 2 cups sugar

• ½ teaspoon ground ginger

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon mustard seed

• 1/3 cup prepared horseradish

Chop tomatoes and peppers; put in a large enameled kettle.  Sprinkle with the salt, cover with water, and let soak overnight. 

Combine vinegar, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and mustard.  Drain tomatoes and pepper thoroughly.  Add vinegar mixture and simmer until tender.  Add horseradish.

Pack into hot sterilized jars, leaving a ½-inch headspace; seal.  Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

                                 From Diana Rattray on About:Southern U.S. Cooking

                                (http://southernfood.about.com)

PICCALILLI vs. CHOW-CHOW

A cookbook from a women’s club in southern Illinois pre-WWII has recipes for both chow-chow and piccalilli, but there is no significant difference between them.  One of the recipes for chow-chow includes horseradish.  The spices do differ from one recipe to another.  Both could have green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, bell peppers, etc.  The piccalilli does seem to have a higher proportion of onions.

A caller recommends: Linda Ziedrich’s book, The Joy of Pickling (Harvard Common Press, 1999; ISBN 1558321330)  It’s a good source for the distinction between chow-chow and piccalilli.  Among the best recipes is her pickle relish recipe with a little horseradish.  The tomato jam recipe is also good; also pepper onion relish with red onions.  Pickled green cherry tomatoes, though, was “horrible.”  Curried green tomato pickles was good.

VINEGAR-BASED BARBECUE SAUCES

Caller recalled some southern Illinois chow-chow she had enjoyed, “kind of like slaw.”  Johnson’s brand from Harrisburg, IL, can be bought:  Johnson's Southern Style Barbecue Sauce  at http://www.johnsonsbbq.com/

Another caller recommended another vinegar-based barbecue sauce – Kings Delight from Kingston, North Carolina.  Not as heavy as tomato-based sauces.  Soaks into the bread. Contains vinegar, salt, pepper, and soy flavoring.  Kings Delight BBQ Sauce at http://www.kingsbbq.com/bbqSauce.html

A caller from Broadlands remembers a vinegar-based BBQ sauce developed by the Purdue Extension Service that contains vinegar and lots of butter (or oil). The exact recipe seems to be a secret, though.  You can get it at the Deer Festival in Golconda, IL, served at a barbecue booth, but not sold separately.

Vinegar barbecue sauce was made on America’s Test Kitchen a few weeks ago.  Look for Eastern North Carolina Style Barbecue Sauce at http://www.americastestkitchen.com/

In Durham, NC, any time you ordered a sandwich or hot dog, it automatically came with a cole slaw with cream sauce (not vinegar) made with carrots and cabbage.  Colonel Sanders there used to serve vinegar pork barbecue.  In the same area, family would preserve a watermelon in a bin of oats until Christmas.

KETCHUP

Linda Ziedrich’s  book has a tip for making ketchup:  start it in the evening and cook it down, then put it in a crockpot and leave the lid off when you go to bed.  In the morning it’s nice and thick and you can it in half-pint jars.

MORE ON GREEN TOMATOES

Take green tomatoes just before a freeze and put them in a box or basket with newspaper.  It causes them to ripen.  Works with pears too.

PERSIMMON TREES

Persimmon trees on UI campus:  if you go out the SW door of the main library directly across from former architecture building on a diagonal between that building and the commerce building.  Called “possum persimmons” because possums (and dogs) like to eat them.  There are 5 of these trees.

At the corner of Vine and Randolph in Champaign, there is another persimmon tree, on the SW corner of the intersection.