First off, use glass bowls and metal utensils when making this….neither will absorb the heat.
The sweet brine uses 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of cider vinegar. Heat this until the sugar is dissolved fully, but don’t boil it. Add a tablespoon of whole cloves to the brine along with a chopped up piece of ginger root the size of a thumb. Cover and continue heating over low heat for about a half an hour. Take off the heat and allow it to sit on a back burner with no heat for a day. After the day wait, strain the brine and its ready to use.
Any hot peppers will work. Wash them, nip out the stems, and chop them fairly fine with a food chopper. Chop enough sweet onion to equal the amount of peppers, mix together and add a couple tablespoons of canning salt. Cover and slip in the fridge over night. Rinse the peppers in a seive and put back in the bowl and cover with ice water for a couple hours, then drain again until fairly dry.
Heat the brine to just under boiling and add the drained pepper/onion mix and heat thoroughly for twenty minutes or so. While the pepper mix heats up, wash some 8 ounce jars and heat the lids in simmering water.
Use a slotted spoon to fill the jars with the pepper mix, but tamp it down, drain off most of the brine and add more pepper mix. When you have filled the jars to within an inch from the top, spoon in enough hot brine to come to within an 1/8th inch of the rim. Seal with a cover/ring and flip up to sit on the cover for a minute then turn back right side up until cool. If the lids don’t snap down, just store the relish in the fridge and use it before those jars that did seal.
The relish has a sweet tang but its followed by some kick. How hot it gets depends on the variety of peppers used. If you use habenero peppers, use with care.
