Asparagus Relish

I had intended to keep playing around with this idea until I landed on a recipe I really liked, but some twitter friends (you know who you are) outed me. The idea is to come up with something new and unique for the Asparagus festival at Wild Goose next weekend. I tried cream of asparagus soup, asparagus risotto, but for whatever reason I could not amplify the flavor of the asparagus. It tended to get lost in whatever I made. So I headed in another direction and decided to try something suitable for canning. I love relish, mostly on hot dogs and sausages in the summer, so I leafed through my Blue Book Guide to Preserving and landed on a recipe for zucchini relish I thought might be easily adapted.

Sorry I have no photo, but imagine relish and you've got it!

Somewhat prematurely, here is the first draft of a recipe for asparagus relish:

1 cup asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/2 in pieces
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chopped sweet red pepper
1 tbsp salt
1/3 cup sugar (* I'll come back to this)
1 tsp celery seed
1/2 cup cider vinegar

Combine asparagus, onions and peppers, sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water. Let stand 2 hours. Drain, rinse and drain again.

Combine salt, sugar, celery seed and vinegar in saucepan and bring to a boil. Add drained vegetables and simmer 10 min.

* I halved the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. I'm still new to canning, but I used to believe that sugar had something to do with preserving and so followed the recipes precisely. I've seen heard that it's more about acid levels that matter, and either way, I had no intention of canning this very small batch (it's half a recipe from the book), I cut it way down. It's still on the sweet side, a bit like a sweet pickle relish.

We ate it on water crackers on top of a thin layer of goat cheese. Not sure I recommend the combination but other people seemed to like it. I might try a more neutral cheese the next time, or just eat the relish plain.

If I keep at this, I'm going to do the full recipe and split it in half - one with no sugar and one with half again as much as I used here and see which I prefer. I'm also going to try adding a little lemon zest since it's complimentary to asparagus, and maybe throw in spices other than celery seed.

Since this was derived from a Ball's recipe, it is suitable for canning. Double up the amounts shown above and you should get 2 pints.

Is anyone interested in a recipe for pickled asparagus? I made this too, and thought it turned out really tasty. Crispy, tart and great for munching. If I find more asparagus in the markets this weekend, I am going to make up a big batch for canning.