Wednesday 14 November 2012

The ring of fire...



And it burned, burned,burned... I have learned my lesson last week chopping and de-seeding chilies for some new recipes ;-(


Red hot "chilly" peppers

With the snow paying us a visit 10 days ago (albeit a brief one), we decided that it was time to bring some of our balcony plants in for the winter. We harvested all the chilies from our chili plants and ended up with two punnets of them!


What to do, what to do??? We don't like our food that spicy (and these little b*ggers are hot!) but it seemed a shame to not attempt to make something with them. Once again, the Tinterweb came to the rescue and I found a recipe for Chili Jam courtesy of Nigella. I can't stand the woman but her food often turns out to be good so I thought I'd make peace with her, just for this time.
 
All I did was cutting and de-seeding 150 g of chilies. It doesn't even look THAT much in the picture below but oh god, did I suffer!!


Schoolboy error, I didn't have any plastic gloves so I wore no protection on my hands. I didn't feel anything while doing it but I did not escape THE pain!! I tried rubbing olive oil on my hands to take the sting off and although it momentarily worked, it didn't make removing my contact lenses later on that day any less painful!
 
Chop chilies finely in food processor,


then do the same with 150g of peppers





In the meantime, disolve 1kg of jam sugar into 600mL of cider vinegar


before adding the chilies/peppers and bringing to the boil for 10 minutes


Leave to cool for about 40 minutes before pouring into sterilised jars



We are yet to try it so I have no idea how spicy it is or what we can have it with but I will keep you posted!

While I was in agony, I thought that I might as well cut a few more chilies and make some chili oil! Why not? This time, I found a recipe on the BBC Food website.

I chopped another 40g of chilies



and added them, along with 8 whole chilies, to 1L of olive oil that was gently being warmed up in a pan.


Pour into sterilised glass bottles using a funnel




ermmmm, I am not sure we will go through this amount of chili oil in a year (or whether putting it in my mouth is a wise idea) but at the very least, the bottles will look good in the cupboard!

Let's hope that it was all worth THE pain!!

3 comments:

JuanitaTortilla said...

Man, too bad about the sting. I am sure it will all be worth it, and you'll be telling us how all your chilli preservation tastes so good.

Planet Penny said...

I hope you've recovered now! I love chillies, I'll be really interested to find out what the jam tastes like. x

guscameron85 said...

The chilli/contact lens burn is a classic Team Blue error! I do it all the time :). We buy chilli Jam as it goes really well with brie - you should try it (even though it might not be entirely fair on Mr T!)

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