In the old calendar Christmas was smack bang in the middle of winter and the celebrations were all about banishing the darkness, about bringing a bit of summer into the cold and dark nights.
What better gift can there be than heat in a bottle?
And it’s easy to make.
This is a sweet sauce, ideal for dribbling on just about anything; I’ve been dunking pork-pie into it or using it as an alternative to pickles with cold meats.
Here’s how.
Take a handful of fresh chillies, in this case Scotch Bonnets due to their citrussy taste. They were selling them on our market where I got a bagful for 62p. Trim and de seed them. Remember, only rub your eyes or play with your private parts if you want to go blind. Put a couple of red ones to one side. Cook the rest in oil with a diced carrot and chopped ginger root, until soft. Empty in a pint of white vinegar (cider vinegar would be good too) a generous pinch of salt and the flesh from either one very large or a number of small mangoes. Cook this until the mango softens. Blend it until smooth. Now the fun bit . . taste it and decide if you would like it sweeter. Careful doing this though, the fumes grab you by the throat and melt your eyes. I decided to add sugar as I wanted it to be sweeter. You decide. It should now be a slow running consistency; add a little water to thin it or boil it down to thicken it. Finally chop the remaining chillies very finely and add to the brew. This makes it speckled rather than a uniform yellow. Decant into any small bottles you have; I find that the miniature wine bottles sold in pubs are an ideal size. After a few days the vinegar taste mellows and you are left with a lovely fruity sauce with a zingy bite.
Merry Chillimas!
I have just received a bottle of the delicious sauce as a Christmas present.
“Christmas is a time for exchanging the chilli in its various forms as King Cobra will find when Queen Cobra returns from her northern sabbatical.”
So far I have tried the sauce neat on a black pepper water biscuit. Deelish.
I recently came across the chilli jam man and his products. Check the link. http://www.thechillijamman.com
He had a stall in Pontefract MArket very recently and his products tasted impressive. The Three Peaks isn’t named after the famous Dales walking challenge, but after the three distinctive heat peaks that you experience in your mouth as the different chillies kick in. Sublime!
As an afterthought about Chillimas, I happened to come across a wonderful cheese and chilli pack in Asda. It was a basket with two slabs of mexicana cheese (one of which was extra hot with added chilli) and a jar of piccalilli with added chilli which was imaginatively called “chillililli”. The extra hot mexicana cheese was divine. You could really taste the chillies. The chillililli isn’t so nice but I have given it to Lily because I can.
This sauce sounds fab, thanks for sharing 🙂