Mum's Tomato Relish

As a child, we killed our own beef on our station, so we ate a lot of beef. There is a lot of meat on an entire beast, and a most of it isn't fillet steak; lunch usually consisted of sliced cold meat and salad. With relish. When we packed lunches to take mustering, meat and relish sandwiches were the first choice; by the time we stopped riding for lunch (bottom numb, legs chaffed), the butter and relish would have soaked into the bread, making a delicious combination of buttery sweet and tart to wrap around the slabs of beef. My memories of mum's tomato relish come with the powdery dust of cattle camps and the smell of horse sweat, baking heat and tired muscles.

Mum had a vege garden that supplied us with enough food to last year round. We bought fruit, potatoes and onions, but the rest was from her garden. Lots of tomatoes, and every year she'd make a large batch of relish. She still does, and now we do too. This recipe would have come from her mother or her mother in law.

Mum's Tomato Relish
4 lb tomatoes
4 onions
salt
vinegar (approx 750ml)
1 lb sugar
1 1/2 tab Keens mustard powder
1 tab Keens curry powder

Chop tomatoes and onions, place on separate plates and sprinkle with plenty of salt. Stand covered on the bench overnight. Drain in a colander or seive the next morning and discard the juice.

Place in a large saucepan and cover with vinegar, then add sugar and bring to the boil. Cook at a bit hotter than simmer for an hour or so - until the liquid has reduced and the relish is thick enough. Mix the mustard and curry powders with cold vinegar and stir through. Allow to boil a few more minutes, then remove from the heat. Bottle and seal.

You can eat this straight away but the flavour improves with age.