In pursuit of a healthier and tastier burger, it will serve us well to step away from the processed and mass-produced shop bought relishes, and head towards the fresh fruit and veg aisle – your body and taste buds will thank you for it later… Don’t panic, you can still get that dirty burger hit by fooling your brain with a couple of neat sweet tricks!
Recipes for relish usually call for lots of refined sugar; this version uses a smaller quantity of unrefined coconut sugar, relying on fresh mango for the rest of the sweetness, giving it a bigger nutritional boost alongside all the other fresh ingredients used. I promise you that your brain will not know the difference, but your body will, in a good way.
I plan to try this recipe with less and less coconut sugar and with more fruit, aiming for a sugar-free version whilst maintaining that same level of satisfaction that we often crave in a burger experience – sure, I regularly make burgers with fresh raw salsas that contain no sweeteners at all, and I thoroughly enjoy them, but the aim here is to replicate that particular kind of relish that we have all enjoyed in a dirty burger experience.
I use this relish as part of my Nutty Tofu Burger recipe as well as in my Portabello Mushroom and Aubergine Stack (pictured above), both of which I will link here soon. It can also be used in the same way as a chutney, is delicious in sandwiches, wraps and sits well on the side of a big salad plate…. Or, like me, you can just eat it straight from the jar!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 4 cloves garlic crushed and finely chopped or grated
- 1 mild red chilli – finely chopped
- 1 red onion – cut into quarters then cut into 3/4 cm slices
- 1 red pepper – diced
- 140g cherry tomatoes – halved
- 1/2 to 3/4 of a fresh ripe mango – chopped into very small pieces
- 80ml white distilled vinegar
- 50g coconut sugar
- 2 tsp mustard seeds
- Salt
- Pepper
- Juice of 1 lemon
Method
- Simply place all of the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Gently boil/simmer for around 45 minutes, stirring regularly to prevent sticking. The relish is ready when all the liquid has reduced and is a thick sticky consistency similar to jam.
- Remove from heat and cool before using. Store in a jar or airtight container in the fridge.
