Adzhyka po-Ukrainsky (аджика, tomato-pepper relish)

The tomatoes don't stay red. They darken. First garden-red, then brick-red, then the kind of glowing red that stains the wooden spoon and makes you understand why August needs jars. This is the southern garden concentrated: tomato, sweet pepper, chilli, garlic, salt, oil, nothing shy.

Adzhyka po-Ukrainsky is the Ukrainian home-kitchen answer to a relish that travelled north from the Caucasus and found itself in our litnya kuhnia, the summer kitchen, where buckets of tomatoes waited under the table and every aunt had a different heat level. Mine cooks down until the wet hiss turns to a thick, lazy blup and the spoon leaves a clean path. Aunt Nadia wrote only "until it sounds right," which was rude of her, but she was correct.

The one thing that decides it is the garlic. Add it late, after the tomatoes and peppers have lost their raw water, so it stays bright and hot instead of boiling into dullness. Then jar it, cool it, and let tomorrow do its work; by morning it has stopped shouting and started singing. Spoon it onto roasted meat, fried eggs, potatoes, bread, or a bowl of borshch that wants a little fire.