Sweet & Spicy Red Pepper Jam

For the Super Bowl this year, AK really wanted a hot dog bar. We made some of the usual hot dog toppings (caramelized onions, pickled cabbage), but I was at Shoppers and red peppers were on sale 4 for $5, which is amazingly cheap at least in my area, so I wanted to do some kind of red pepper condiment for the hot dogs too. I perused through some of the canning and pickling cookbooks we received as wedding gifts and came across a recipe for Sweet Red Pepper Relish in Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff.

Looking at the recipe, I was a bit skeptical that it would be a good hot dog condiment, but decided to throw caution to the wind. It wasn’t like the other people at our Super Bowl party have never tasted anything funky from me before 🙂 I didn’t want an overly sweet relish so I reduced the amount sugar in the recipe, and I wanted it to be spicy as well as sweet so I added sriracha. It came out more like jam than a relish, but the sweet-spicy combination was divine paired with the salty hot dogs (apparently it was also good with the chili and caramelized onions–yes, multiple people tried it :)). If you are a cream cheese and jelly lover, this relish would be PERFECT for that. I haven’t tried it yet, but I could see it being pretty darn good on vanilla ice cream too (the blueberry jam is awesome for that too). And if you’re sick of the whole cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving thing, I think this relish could make a very good substitute.

Sweet & Spicy Red Pepper Jam
Adapted from Canning for a New Generation

Ingredients

4 cups finely chopped red bell peppers
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 cups white or apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sriracha

Directions

1. Place a fine mesh sieve over a large bowl.
2. Stem and seed the peppers (I used 4 very large ones) and cut them into large chunks. Using a food processor or the chopper attachment for your immersion blender, pulse to chop the peppers finely, but don’t puree them. Drain the chopped peppers in the sieve, squeezing to remove the liquid. Reserve pepper juice for another purpose if you like (red pepper jelly?).
3. Place peppers, sugar, vinegar, and sriracha in a large stock pot (I used an 8 quart wide stock pot). Bring the pot to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently, until larger pepper pieces are very soft and liquid has become thick and syrupy. Taste and adjust vinegar, sugar, and sriracha to your liking.
4. Spoon into containers and cool (or you can can it, see more about that here). Serve warm or cold.

The cost:
peppers: $5
pantry: $1

Grand total: $6.00 (12-14 oz)