Cooking ideas - got chillis - lots of them!

Make some sweet chilli sauce, homemade is much better than bought.

Using 1/3 of the chillis you have there I reckon you'll need somewhere between 100 and 150g of sugar depending on how sweet you like things (though without knowing exactly how big the chillis are that's a bit of a guess)

Put the chillis in a food processor with a few cloves of garlic and blend until most it's in small pieces, but not complete mush.
Add the chilli mixture to a pan with the sugar, a splash of water and about a tablespoon of vinegar (white wine or cider vinegar preferably)

Then just cook on a medium to low heat until it becomes sticky, but before the sugar starts to caramelise.
Should only take 5-10 minutes at most depending on how much you make.
 
make some chilli vodka :cool:
Done :cool:

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I made some mango chutney a while back and unopened it was fine after 6 months, then it kept for ages after that. I'm going to leave the chilli chutney for at least 2-3 weeks before I open it because it matures with time, ie the flavours infuse properly.
 
Make some sweet chilli sauce, homemade is much better than bought.

Using 1/3 of the chillis you have there I reckon you'll need somewhere between 100 and 150g of sugar depending on how sweet you like things (though without knowing exactly how big the chillis are that's a bit of a guess)

Put the chillis in a food processor with a few cloves of garlic and blend until most it's in small pieces, but not complete mush.
Add the chilli mixture to a pan with the sugar, a splash of water and about a tablespoon of vinegar (white wine or cider vinegar preferably)

Then just cook on a medium to low heat until it becomes sticky, but before the sugar starts to caramelise.
Should only take 5-10 minutes at most depending on how much you make.

Do you need to cut the chillis and take out the seeds first, or just cut off the top?
 
Make Chilli oil!

Just set a few aside next to a window (string em up if you can) for a couple of weeks, when they're dry stick em in an oil bottle and after a couple of days, delicious chilli oil.
 
You can leave the seeds. Although the major concentration of Capsaicin is in the pith that connects the seed to the flesh/center section of the chilli fruit. So removing the seeds/pith will reduce the heat.
If you remove them then the end result will be smoother.
 
Make Chilli oil!

Just set a few aside next to a window (string em up if you can) for a couple of weeks, when they're dry stick em in an oil bottle and after a couple of days, delicious chilli oil.

I'm going to sound like a spoilsport - make sure you make chilli oil properly and sterilise/heat the oil to a high temp. It's a major source of food poisoning and botchulism. Sounds stupid I know..

Chilli Oil Recipe

Chilli oil is probably the simplest way to add a bit of flavour (not to mention heat) to virtually any dish. You can either use it to cook with in place of normal olive oil, or simply drizzle some over freshly prepared dishes. It will liven up any dish but it is particularly good on pizzas and pasta.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
Dried red chillies
Malt Vinegar

Method:

Take a handful of dried red chillies. About 7 or 8 medium size chillies should do the job - it all depends how hot you like it!. Add them to a pan of hot malt vinegar and simmer, stirring occasionally to make sure all the chillies are submerged.

After 10 minutes remove the chillies and allow the vinegar to drain off by placing on some kitchen roll. Next, add the chillies to a pan of olive oil and gently heat (don?t bring to the boil for about 5 minutes). Leave the pan and the chillies to cool then add the lot into a nice glass bottle, preferably one with a pouring spout.Chilli oil is used extensively in Asian cooking. For a more authentic flavour when used in Asian dishes olive oil probably isn?t the best choice. Simply replace the olive oil in the above recipe for peanut or good vegetable oil.

A word of caution:

Simply dumping a load of fresh chillies into a bottle of oil is not a great idea as it can result in botulism which to cut a long story short is a nasty which can in some very rare cases be fatal!

Unfortunately simply boiling the oil won't reduce the risk. The way round this is to reduce the PH level of the chillies before putting them in thew oil. This is achieved in the above recipe by first boiling the chillis for ten minutes in venegar. In order to further reduce the risk I always use dried chillies, not fresh.

I'll be doing this with the Nagas.
 
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Cheers for that Nick, mate of mine just dried them and chucked em straight in some oil; won't be using it again any time soon when i visit! Currently drying my chillis so will follow that recipe once they're ready.
 
My Thai breakfast :D

Chop up some bacon, fry it, add a load of mushroom when the bacon is half done.

Chop the chillies into fairly large chunks, throw in a bowl with a couple of eggs, some milk/cream, black pepper, white pepper, salt and a couple slugs of fish sauce. Beat thoroughly :)

Pour the mixture over the top of the frying bacon and mushrooms. Keep stirring to avoid it stick or burning.

Serve with rice, pita bread, toast...whatever. Yummy :)
 
Do you need to cut the chillis and take out the seeds first, or just cut off the top?
I used the whole thing chopped up into various sizes, but these aren't killer hot.

Just set a few aside next to a window (string em up if you can) for a couple of weeks, when they're dry stick em in an oil bottle and after a couple of days, delicious chilli oil.
Funny you should mention that, just strung up a load in a nice long floor to ceiling string in front of the south facing window :)

I'm going to sound like a spoilsport - make sure you make chilli oil properly and sterilise/heat the oil to a high temp. It's a major source of food poisoning and botchulism. Sounds stupid I know..
I've got a Michel Roux sauce book and the recommendation is to heat the oil to 80 degrees C, drop in the fresh chillis and take it off the heat. Let it cool, pass it through a seive and then bottle it.

I've made chilli and garlic oil in the past by just chucking it in, before I knew about the heating process and the chilli or garlic degrades in the oil in a kind of strange underwater mould.
 
My Thai breakfast :D

Chop up some bacon, fry it, add a load of mushroom when the bacon is half done.

Chop the chillies into fairly large chunks, throw in a bowl with a couple of eggs, some milk/cream, black pepper, white pepper, salt and a couple slugs of fish sauce. Beat thoroughly :)

Pour the mixture over the top of the frying bacon and mushrooms. Keep stirring to avoid it stick or burning.

Serve with rice, pita bread, toast...whatever. Yummy :)

Oddly this Chilli Oil uses Spanish ham in too: http://laocook.com/2009/06/07/chilli-oil/
 
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