Chicago-Style Hot Giardiniera
Ingredients
Stage 1: Chop and brine
- 2 green bell peppers diced
- 2 red bell peppers diced
- 8 (or more) fresh green chillies, ideally jalapeño or serrano sliced
- 1 celery stalk diced
- 1 medium carrot diced
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cauliflower florets
- water to cover
- 1/2 cup sea salt
Stage 2: Marinate / pickle
- white distilled vinegar
Stage 3: To finish the giardiniera
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper optional
- olive oil
Instructions
Stage 1: Chop and brine
- Place into a bowl the green and red peppers, jalapenos, celery, carrots, onion, and cauliflower. Sprinkle over the salt, and fill with enough cold water to cover. Cover and leave for about 8-12 hours.
Stage 2: Marinate / pickle
- The next day, drain salty water, and rinse vegetables. Place back in a bowl and cover with the vinegar. Cover and again leave for another 8-12 hours.
Stage 3: To finish the giardiniera
- Drain the vegetables but reserve the vinegar. Put the vegetables back into the bowl.
- Add in the garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Combine well. . Pour in vinegar and olive oil, and mix well. Combine with vegetable mixture – if the liquid doesn’t cover the vegetables, add some more olive oil and vinegar in equal proportions until the veg is totally submerged.
- Pack into jars - I use a spoon to pack in the vegetables pretty tightly. Pour over olive oil to cover the vegetables. (Olive oil is pretty expensive! So sometimes I add a mix of olive oil and the reserved vinegar. It definitely tastes better when there's more olive oil than vinegar!)
- Cover, and refrigerate for a day or two before using (if you can wait this long!).
Notes
Feel free to adjust the quantity of vegetables to suit your liking. Once you’ve chopped everything and mixed it in a bowl, you can look at the mix and decide if you want to up the quantity of anything – I almost always add a bit more carrot and cauliflower. The red chilli flakes are optional – if your jalapeños aren’t very spicy, you might want to add them to up the heat factor a bit. As to chopping the vegetables, the size is up to you – sometimes life calls for a finely chopped giardiniera (great for putting on sandwiches, hot dogs, etc) but chunky giardiniera is best for the relish platter.