Pepper and Eggplant in Oil - Preserving the Harvest

9 years ago

I am usually skeptical of anything that uses oil in canning - I avoid it like the plague, but I'm also really cautious. I think it took me months to actually try to pressure can chicken stock, and even longer to accept it as safe. (In the meantime, my husband was eating it way before I was - he said it was great. Apparently he trusts my skills more!).

So when looking for new recipes in my books, I came across this pickled eggplant and pepper recipe from "Preserving the Harvest" by Carol Costenbader from 2002. It sounds a lot like the eggplant and pepper stuff I buy at Costco, and would be tons more convenient than the giant jug that I buy that only I eat.

But..... It's pickled in oil. AND garlic. And I didn't you could do that. It does have a high vinegar content in it, but it still calls for water bath canning... Garlic and oil? I thought that just wasn't done....

Thoughts? Do these books get tested? Am I overthinking this one or should this recipe be just crossed out? I hate finding a bad recipe in a book because it makes me nervous about the fidelity of the rest of the book.

Here are the ingredients if you don't have the book:

5 small eggplants, unpeeled and sliced in 1/2 inch slices
4 large red bell peppers
2 large yellow bell peppers
1 cup olive oil
3/4 cup cider vinegar
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp pickling salt
1/4 tsp dried pepper flakes
10 large basil leaves

The procedure involves grilling the eggplant, roasting the peppers. Then you heat the oil/vinegar/spices. Put the eggplant and peppers in the jars and top off with the oil/vinegar mixture and process for 20 minutes in BWB.

Is this safe? Or a botulism party waiting to happen?

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Comments (4)

booberry85
9 years ago
I have bad news and good news about this recipe. I'll start with the good news. I had the book Preserving the Harvest. I saw this recipe and made it. I loved it. I gave away jars of it as Christmas gifts. Other people loved it.

The bad news is, that I found out later, that the recipes in this book are NOT tested. So I haven't made the recipe since. I was told by a woman who used to teach the master preserver classes for the USDA, not to make the recipe for canning anymore. It's ok to make the recipe and keep the jars in the frig, but because of the low acidity of the veggies and the use of oil, its a no-no until tested.
pixie_lou
9 years ago
It looks to me like the author of this book tried to adapt the nchfp recipe for marinated mushrooms. Which gives me some confidence that this isn't instant death wish in a jar. But the quantities don't match up. And the low acid vegetable substitutions are not allowed per nchfp guidelines. So I guess I would consider it probable death wish in a jar.

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP marinated canned mushrooms
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This quote from the International Food Safety Network archives at Kansas State may answer your question: Italian workers reported 65 per cent of 84 cases of botulism in that country in a five-year period were attributed to homemade vegetable preserves in oil. Botulism is low-incidence but high risk, so an individual or family may follow a particular preservation procedure for a long time before the odds go against them. But when luck turns, then the results are very nasty. This quote from Current Food Safety Issues of Home-prepared Vegetables and Herbs Stored in Oil by B. A. Nummer, D. W. Schaffner, A. M. Fraser, E. L. Andress explains the issue more thoroughly: Consumer interest in storing vegetables or herbs in oil or infusing oils with these products has grown over recent decades. Vegetables and herbs stored in oil provide several conditions necessary for botulinum toxin production, including an anaerobic environment. Studies of documented outbreaks of botulism have identified vegetables and herbs in oil as the food source, with most outbreaks traced to home-prepared versions. Implicated foods include peppers, garlic, mushrooms, and eggplant. Visual or other organoleptic clues do not provide adequate information to prevent botulism. Most Cooperative Extension resources have communicated the risks and hazards of storing these foods at room temperature and suggest refrigeration, freezing, drying, and acidifying as alternatives. The safest recommendation is to freeze vegetables or herbs stored in oil. If the product is not frozen, it should be refrigerated and then either consumed within four days or discarded. Future research is required to clarify the potential of additional hurdles to preparing and storing these foods safely. Possible research areas include the use of boiling water canning, acidification, and drying followed by an acid dip. Refrigeration is a good option but the document I've linked to below recommends no longer than three weeks. I'd give freezing a shot. You might do a small test batch, refrigerate the majority for short-term consumption and freeze the remainder then thaw (in the refrigerator) after a week or so to see how it comes out re texture. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Food Safety and Preservation Herbs and Vegetables in Oil
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This is your own made-up recipe? Or is it a tested recipe from one of the approved canning recipe sources? If it your own recipe then not only would it violate the first rule of safety in home canning - that you cannot make up your own recipes - but canning it would be considered unsafe to do per the accepted guidelines. Not only do you not know the pH or the density of it but the pressure canning processing time would just be a guess. Weight used is determined by your altitude, not the ingredients. Time is determined by the ingredients, the pH, and the density of the food. If this is a tested and approved recipe then the proper processing time would have been provided for you. Otherwise canning this is something you do at your own risk and, since it is a low-acid vegetable mixture, with all those other unknowns it is a very risky thing to try to can. Freeze it. Dave
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reba, I'd feel safe with a USDA recipe from that recently. That full cup of oil is cut with THREE cups of strong acid. I think the magic Ellie works is simply that she worked on developing the recipes and had some recources to TEST them while doing so. The reason for caution about untested recipes isn't that they're known to cause illness, but that they haven't been demonstrated scientifcally to be 100% safe. The bar most home canners want for safety is a 100% guarantee that there won't be a food safety problem if they follow the recipes. (Botulism is such a horribly serious condition that few people want even the teeniest chance of contracting it---after all, home canning is associated with fun, health, and generous gifting.) It's comapratively easy to devise a safe recipe with nothing but fruit, sugar, and acid ingredients. Most combinations of those are going to test perfectly fine on the first try. But combinations involving low-acid ingredients, oil, and thickeners, while not necessarily always UNsafe, presumably often need more tries to find a combo that is both tasty and proven to be completely risk-free. There just aren't a lot of resources committed to developing and testing new canning recipes, presumably because the canning lobby is pretty small and not exactly wealthy and politically powerful. So other than the company that sells canning products, which puts out a few new recipes a year, and the occasional cash-strapped extension office, there aren't a lot of places testing recipes, TRYING to find safe ways of making stuff some of us want to make, like low-sugar or low-acid or fat-involving items. That's why I love Auntie Ellie. She had a cable show in Canada for a while; it was called PUT A LID ON IT (her book is a combination of two earlier books tied to the show and called PUT A LID ON IT 1 and 2), and many of the recipes apparently were created for the show. Presumably the advertising revenue is where the money came from for the testing, and there seems to have been some cooperation with Health Canada, as they are noted as having approved her method for making flavoured oils as a safe one. Clearly what we need is a new canning tv show! Ideally, a U.S. prime-time reality show---THINK of the $$ they would have for recipe development! Way more than some measly Canadian cable show. I foresee a new career for our Annie as celebrity host! ;-) Zabby
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go to the harvest forum for this question. oil does NOT preserve and is very dangerous. Best to use NO OIL. If It was ME. I would preserve the peppers plain in 100% vinegar and then stuff them when I go to eat them. But I like the taste of vinegar. at the time you remove the peppers you could soak them in water to remove some vinegar flavor then stuff and eat. vinegar will keep them crisp better and longer and safer than water and vinegar. I always use 100% vinegar and never add any water.
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malna
9 years ago
Another option might be to try the Caponata from Small Batch Preserving. Not quite the same, but we like it a lot and it has been tested.

CAPONATA

"Caponata is a Sicilian dish served as a salad, side dish or relish. We also like it as an appetizer spread on toasted baguette slices."

1 small eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch (5 mm) cubes
1 1/2 tbsp pickling salt (20 mL)
2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper, diced
1 cup diced zucchini (250 mL)
1/2 chopped onion (125 mL)
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped stuffed olives (50 mL)
1 tbsp capers, rinsed (15 mL)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp fresh thyme (5 mL) or 1/4 tsp (1 mL) dried
1/4 tsp each: salt and freshly ground pepper (1 mL)
1/3 cup red wine vinegar (75 mL)
2 tsp granulated sugar (10 mL)
2 tsp olive oil (10 mL)
2 tbsp tomato paste (25 mL)

(Read Step-by-Step Guide (below) before proceeding with recipe.)

Place eggplant in a non-reactive bowl. Sprinkle with salt and stir well. Let stand for 2 hours. Drain eggplant in a sieve and rinse twice. draining thoroughly; press out excess moisture.

Place eggplant, tomatoes, red pepper, zucchini, onion, garlic, olives, capers, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper in a large roasting pan.

Heat vinegar, sugar, and oil in a microwavable container until hot, about 1 minute, stir into vegetables.

Bake in a 350 degree F (18OC) oven for about 1 1/2 hours (1 hour for a convection oven), or until vegetables are softened and liquid has evaporated, stirring every 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven, discard bay leaf and stir in tomato paste.

Remove hot jars from canner and spoon relish into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (headspace).

Process 15 minutes for half-pint (250 mL) jars and 20 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars in a boiling water canner.

Makes 5 Cups (1.25 L)
E
Original Author
9 years ago
I was afraid that the recipe wasn't tested. I looked a little around the book, but couldn't find any kind of verification on the recipes. It does look pretty similar to the marinated mushrooms and the marinated peppers recipe. Both use oil in the recipes. I'm the only that likes eggplant in my house, but love it roasted and marinated on a sandwich.

I may do enjoy a good caponata, but that is a completely beast than a marinated eggplant - still good, but not what I was hoping for.

Pepper and Eggplant in Oil - Preserving the Harvest

Comments (4)

booberry85

pixie_lou

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Pepper and Eggplant in Oil - Preserving the Harvest

Comments (4)

booberry85

pixie_lou

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malna

EOriginal Author

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Original Author