A Copycat Recipe for Hart’s Turkey Farm’s Carrot Relish
If you live in New England, it’s possible you’ve heard of Hart’s Turkey Farm. It’s a lovely restaurant in Meredith, New Hampshire with delicious food. You can find their website here.
When you first sit down and order, they bring over a plate with crackers and this kind of odd-looking orange relish stuff. The first time we went, I didn’t want to try it. However, hubby, a veteran of the place from going there with his parents when he was growing up, insisted I had to try it.
I was hooked! HOLY COW! This stuff was magic! Sooooo good!
I bought a jar of it and brought it home, but it disappeared awfully fast! So, what’s a girl to do? Well, try to make it myself, of course! search Pinterest for a copycat, of course!
There are plenty of copycat recipes on Pinterest, and I even tried a couple of them, but they were gross weren’t even close to the original.
*Sigh* I gave up and decided to make it myself. I had a general idea of ingredients, so got to work, and this is what I ended up with.
This would make an awesome appetizer at Thanksgiving. Or, make a few extra jars and give them as gifts, your friends will thank you!
Here’s the recipe. The explanations, when needed, are later in the post.
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Ingredients (Yield: Approximately 1 pint)
- 4 medium carrots, shredded
- 1 tsp sea salt
- Scant 1/2 tsp pepper
- Scant tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp celery seeds
- 1 tsp dried parsley flakes
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 1/3 + 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
Preparation
- In a large saucepan, mix all ingredients EXCEPT carrots and cornstarch and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Mix cornstarch and a little bit of water (start with 1/2 Tbsp and add as needed) in a small bowl to create a paste.
- Add cornstarch paste to boiling mixture, stir, and allow mixture to boil over medium-high heat until it thickens, stirring occasionally.
- Add carrots and boil 5 to 6 minutes over medium-high heat.
- Remove from heat, allow to cool, and enjoy!
- Store in refrigerator. Relish will keep for several weeks this way.
NOTE: The flavors seem to mix and improve over the course of several days, so making this in advance is a good idea.
Explanation
Any carrots will do, whether baby carrots or regular carrots from the garden or store, although you’ll have to guess how many baby carrots to use to equal the 4 regular carrots. Be sure to shred them finely. I use my Ninja mini-chopper for the job.
Note: This isn’t the exact mini-chopper I have. I got mine probably 15 years ago as an add-on when I bought my Ninja blender. However, I love it, use it often, and can’t recommend this brand enough! I love the blender too, although I don’t use it quite as often just because I don’t find it necessary.
I know it sounds a little strange that the recipe calls for 1/3 + 1/4 cup of brown sugar, but this seems to be exactly the right amount of sweetness. One-third wasn’t enough and two-thirds was too much, so 1/3 + 1/4 it is!
The original relish from Hart’s has both onions and peppers in it. However, as I’m not really an onion or pepper fan, I don’t use them often, so wouldn’t really know how much to use. Therefore, I decided to omit them. You can certainly play with the recipe and add some in. If you do, please comment below and let me know what worked for you.
You can also add some dried onions, if you’d like. I would start with 2 Tbsp and go from there.
I do can this recipe, but I came up with my own canning times for it, and although I haven’t had any problems, don’t feel comfortable recommending canning times to you. Please do your own research and consult a good, solid canning reference like the Ball Book of Canning & Preserving before trying it.
I will tell you that I believe it should be pressure canned, as I don’t think there’s enough vinegar in it to make it acidic enough for water bath canning.
I make 4 times the amount called for in this recipe when I want to can it. I also cut the final cook time from 5 to 6 minutes down to 3 minutes as I don’t want the carrots to turn to complete mush when they’re processed.
So, what to use this on? Well, crackers are obviously wonderful, but don’t stop there! This relish makes a wonderful accompaniment to hot dogs and hamburgers as well.
Although I’ve never tried it, I think it might make an interesting, and colorful!, addition to potato salad as well.
How would you use this carrot relish? Let me know in the comments, maybe I’ll have even more excuses to eat it!
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