Lady Ashburnham’s Relish
This family mustard relish recipe is tart without being sour, and is delicious on sandwiches, hot dogs, and hamburgers.
By Yankee Magazine|Aug 15 2022|
Lady Ashburnham's Relish
Photo Credit: Sherri CorbinThis is a mustard relish recipe my mother passed on to me. It’s tart without being sour, and is delicious on sandwiches, hot dogs, and hamburgers.
Yield:
4 pints
Ingredients
6 large cucumbers, finely chopped
1/4 cup salt
4 cups sweet onions, finely chopped
1 sweet red bell pepper, finely chopped
2-1/2 cups white vinegar
2-1/2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1 teaspoon whole mustard seed
1 teaspoon whole celery seed
1 teaspoon turmeric
Instructions
Chop all the cucumbers the day before you plan on making the relish. Place them in a large bowl and add 1/4 cup of salt. Mix well and cover bowl and leave it overnight.
In the morning, pour the bowl of cucumber pieces (with the liquid) into a fair sized pot. Add the remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat until the onions are transparent and the other vegetables are soft. Approximately 20 minutes.
Pour into 4 sterilized pint jars. Seal and place in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.
Remove the jars from the canner and place on a wire rack to cool.
I just made that recipe and feel if you cut the vinegar but a half cup and the sugar by one half cup the mixture will have more body. Next batch I shall indeed try that approach. The taste in super but prefer a bit thicker consistency. Paul
I am from New Brunswick where this recipe came from. You must drain the vegetables and rinse before you do anything else. The salt was added to get the water out of the cucumbers. Once everything is combined in the pot cook for 1 hour before you bottle it.
HELP! Iv never made pickles before and I want to make this recipe. I have cut up way more cucumbers then I need. I need to know how many cups 6 large cucumbers is.
My lady ashburham pickles are strong tasting, what could the problem be, and how to fix it.
Thanks
These are pretty rough when eaten fresh. They are a very different pickle/relish after 6 – 12 months — flavors merge and mellow and turn out very nice, the recipe is very similar to the CBC web page “Make your own Lady Ashburn pickles” which my experience is based upon.
This smells amazing-however, much more instruction should be here. As someone who has never made pickles before, I called my aunt to ask about it. She said to dump the cucumber water/brine and rinse the cucumbers before putting it in the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Despite her years of pickling experience, I followed this recipe instead. It was WAAAAAAY too watery! Lady Ashburnham pickles are supposed to have a thick sauce, not yellow coloured pickle brine. Although flavour is fine, it is overall disappointing. I love the thick sauce part too. There should be a lot more flour than this recipe states. I will not use this one again and search for something better.
This recipe needs to be changed. My parents made a recipe similar to this where you took the water from the vegetables (which had been mixed with salt) and start your pickles from that. Every jar was dumped as they were much too salty. Any other Lady A pickle I have read explicitly states you should dump the water and rinse the vegetables. Please don’t use this recipe and I hope the owner of this recipe tries their own recipes.
I am also from New Brunswick and this was my Dad’s favorite pickle and I made them for him all of the time, and yes. You absolutely need to drain the cucumbers and rinse them before adding them to the pot.