Instructions: Hamburgers have become popular in Thailand, but the relishes available - mainly imported products - are bland, and sweet, and not to local tastes

(they are however sometimes eaten like jam...)

This is my wifes recipe for a spicy relish. It consists of four components, and the first - the mayonnaise - can be used on its own as a salad dressing or crudite dip.

To mellow the flavor, and get a more interesting variety of flavors, the chilis used are from the normal table condiments of prik dong (red birdseye chilis in rice wine vinegar) and nam pla prik (green birdseye chilis in fish sauce), drained before use. The liquor can of course be recycled to make more prik dong and nam pla prik. If you dont have these items to hand, you should prepare some about a week in advance to give the flavors a chance to develop.

Similarly the "three gingers" - khing (green root ginger), kha (galangal), and kachai (lesser ginger), are sauteed in a little oil. They can be kept in a jar with enough oil to cover the ginger, and if they dont dry out will keep almost indefinately. Again if you do have the prepared sauteed gingers, then simply drain the amount you need. If not, then peel and cut the ginger into slices about an eigth of an inch thick, sautee the slices in peanut oil over medium heat, then julienne and chop the slices.

Component 1: Mayonnaise: put the garlic, mustard powder, drained pickled chilis, and a dash of olive oil in a liquidizer, and puree. Add the egg yolks, and then srizzle in the remainder of the oil as you whisk the mixture.

Component 2: gingers and chilis: drain the vinegar and fish sauce from the thinly sliced chilis, and toss the ingredients together

Component 3: tomatoes: Drop ripe red tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds to loosen the skin, then peel and core them, and then quarter them and discard the seed pulp (the skins and seeds can be reserved for stock making). Coarsely chop the tomato segments: you want 1 cup of chopped tomato

Component 4: onions: Cut and dice a cup of onions: in Thailand we use hom daeng (shallots, or purple onions), which are plentiful and cheap. I understand they are less cheap in other countries, so you could easily use ordinary "spanish" onions. Then sautee the onions briefly in a little olive oil or butter to soften them and moderate the taste.

Finally combine the four ingredients to form the relish.

This gives about 4 cups. The ingredients other than the mayonnaise will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but containing uncooked eggs the mayonnaise has limited keeping capacity. You might prefer to make mayonnaise fresh and combine it with the other ingredients as required.

You might also prefer to put the four ingredients in small bowls, and let the diners mix the relish to suit themselves...

***** And I would suggest warning small children
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***** and the chili intolerant that this might
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***** look like bottled relish, but has a little
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***** more bite to it :-)
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