"Hot" Sweet Pickle Relish

I've got a challange for our members - and I'm tired of looking all over the web without success. When I was just a kid, I lived at the Jersey shore and ate a lot of hot dogs sold on the boardwalk. They had a sweet relish that had a healthy dose of hot peppers added, but it must have been more than that - I've done a lot of batches of hot relish trying to duplicate that stuff, but it's never right. Does anyone have any recipes for Hot Relish that I could try?

TIA, jm

Is it like a Chow-Chow?

Lone Star,
Not like any chow-chow I'm familiar with. It's very much like a sweet cucumber relish, but very hot. However, it had a wonderful balance and was delicious. Thus far, I've tried simply adding dried pepper flakes to various relish recipes, but that's not it. ??? jm

try a regular sweet pickle recipe and instead of using cucmbers use jalapeno peppers making sure you use rubber or latex gloves and remove stems and all seeds. dice them in a food processor. You can usually get them bulk for under a $1.00 a lb and you can use onion and bell pepper in the recipe also. By removing the seeds you lessen the heat of the peppers. They will have about the same heat intensity as jalapeno poppers do. Excellent relish in tuna sandwhiches, with cream cheese on crackers, in deviled eggs or egg sandwhiches, potatoe salad or on your hotdogs etc. hope this helps you.

First off IMHO the only use for pepper flakes is as a pizza topping. Secondly removing the seeds from a jalapeno or other HOT pepper will not remove the heat, you need to remove the membrane or ribs. Im not sure which jersey shore the original poster is referring to,I don't recall a hot/sweet hotdog relish on the seaside boardwalks and I literally spent my youth and young teenage summers "on the boards". I do remember a "hoagie spread" of chopped cherry peppers in a semisweet vinager base that goes well on many things other than "hoagies". I humbly submit the following untried method.. purchase a jar of your favorite relish, deseed one to three jalapeno's or other hot pepper of choice and quarter it, tuck the pieces into the relish and allow to steep.. I use this process with a "side" I keep in the frig, simply sliced onions, bell peppers and a few hots in a glass jar, covered with redwine vinager and a couple tablespoons of evoo