18 Mar Andrew’s Essential Fiery Foods that every Pyro-Gourmaniacs needs to know Part 50

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL MY CHILLIES

 

PRESERVING FOR LATER – SAVING YOUR OWN CHILLIES FOR ANOTHER DAY

If you are like me, most of the time you can’t use all the fresh chillies that you grow. How can you preserve them?

CHILLIES AT THEIR BEST

If you like to use fresh Chillies, they are at their best (according to many people) if they’ve just changed colour, for example from green to red or from green to yellow. At that moment they have the fresh taste of the young green Chilli, but also the rich, full taste of the mature Chilli. In the mature Chilli, the amount of vitamin A and the quantity of sugar is higher. Once the Chillies are fully coloured, they will slowly dry out.

So what are the best ways to preserve the extra pods ?

SALT CURING CHILLIES

Salt-curing foods is an ancient method of food preservation and it’s still useful today.

Ingredients

500 gm Fresh Chillies

60 gm Salt

Method

Wash, dry and chop the Chillies. Put them in a container of some sort and dump on the salt. Give everything a good mixing, and let it sit at room temperature for at least 24 hours then throw in the fridge. Mix daily for about a week or so until everything’s softened up nicely, skimming off any nasty scum that forms. Pack in a jar and keep in the fridge.

CHILLI SALT MADE FROM FRESH CHILLIES

Depending on your desired level of spiciness, use Chillies with an intense flavour, as this flavour will find its way into the salt. Home cultivated Habanero Chillies directly from the plant taste much better than Chillies bought from the supermarket.

CHILLI SALT FROM FRESH CHILLIES

Wash the Chillies and if necessary remove their seeds (these contain the most spiciness), as without seeds the Chilli salt will taste much better.

Chop the Chillies as fine as possible, and mix them with the salt. Use approx. 2 Chillies per 100g of salt. The salt quickly absorbs moisture from the Chillies and becomes sticky. Distribute the mix onto a baking tray and dry everything at 100 °C until the desired level of dryness is reached.

The Chilli salt can be stored for a long time, as the salt works as a preservative. It depends on you and your intended purpose ,e.g. salt grinder how dry your chili salt should be.

CHILLI SALT FROM DRIED CHILLIES

You will need sufficient moisture to create a symbiosis between the salt and the Chillies. If you make Chilli salt from dried Chillies, you should add some water to ensure a slightly sticky salt-Chilli-mixture. This should then be dried in the oven as described above. You can make Chilli salt from dried Chillies, but fresh Chillies ensure a better Chilli flavour, in particular home cultivated Chillies, which have a fantastic flavour.

CHILLIES IN OIL

How to preserve Chillies in olive oil.

Most plants don’t grow all year around. This is why, in 4-season countries, vegetables are preserved to keep them fresh and available for cooking during winters. Thanks to the freezer, the jars and the technology in between that make preserving ideas come true (and easy). Now, the bushes of Chillies can be just enough to spice up your meals throughout the year.

Another simple solution of preserving Chillies is with olive oil. Why olive oil? Among any other types of oil, olive oil delivers tasteful dishes when cooked and probably the only oil that has healthy benefits for your body. Thus, olive oil is considered as high-quality oil.

Olive oil can be the base to cook delicious food due to its wonderful aroma. With a good quality of olive oil, you can have chillies stock that taste even better in time. So how do you preserve chillies in olive oil?

First things to do

First thing to do is to harvest or purchase Chilli peppers. Separate the rotten Chillies and pick only the finest ones. If possible, pick the freshly picked Chillies before processing because the spoilage begins once the Chillies are picked. Wash the chillies with cold water.

Prepare the glass jars by washing them thoroughly and sterilise them by soaking in a pan of boiling water. Or, you can use your dishwasher to dry

those jars. You see, everything to preserve Chillies, need to be clean and sterilised. This is to make sure that bacteria don’t come crawling in your Chillies and spoil them. As for the types of jars, you can use either one or two-part lid as long as it is air tight, it should be fine. It is also recommended that you use brand new jars. Old jars may have been used several times and the lid may no longer provide air tight feature anymore.

Using a sharp sterilise knife, make one or two small holes by poking the Chillies. This trick will help the liquid to penetrate inside and make the Chillies completely preserved in and out. To have a hotter sensation, you can chop the Chillies into smaller parts. When you chop the Chillies, the

juice will be ‘squeezed’ during the preservation. Making them taste hotter and better!

Alternatively, you can roast the Chillies by removing the seeds and put them inside your oven. If you don’t have an oven, you can take out the BBQ grill and roast them there. And since grilling don’t provide timer, you need to be sure that you ‘supervise’ the Chillies to avoid overcooking them.

Preserving Chillies in olive oil allows you to add other ingredients that will create wonderful aroma and taste. You can input fresh garlic, oregano, or any other spices according to your preference.

Preparing the liquid

There are many ingredients to make the liquid solution. Here are the ingredients to get the perfect liquid to preserve your Chillies.

Ingredients

240 ml water

180ml of Olive oil

1250 ml Spirit vinegar

5 gm salt.

Method

Boil the mixture and pour it into each jar that you have filled with Chillies. Leave a centimetre of space to prevent the oil from damaging the lid in the future. Wipe off the excess on the jar and lid surfaces and seal them.

Bring the jars into boiling water for 15 minutes. While you bathe the jars, check each one of them and see if there is any jar that isn’t sealed properly. The bathing process will make the lid pop down because the air is removed.

Warning

Use only high quality ingredients and instruments; not only for the Chillies, but also for the oil and the jars. A good quality jar will not easily break during the process. And the best oil to preserve is olive oil. Olive oil has antioxidant benefits and promotes good nutrition.

When using acid ingredients such as vinegar, make sure you wear gloves when you do the process. Use tongs as well, to avoid your hands from touching the heated lid.

Air tight is the first feature you need to find when purchasing jars to preserve your Chillies. This is essential because you may not want your long effort and time consuming activities end up in a trash bin just because the preserved Chillies are spoiled. Preserving Chillies in olive oil may need time and experience to be perfect.

PICKLING CHILLIES

This is the perfect recipe if you need to make some pickled Chillies quickly ,you should give them at least an hour of pickling and if you want to avoid over-powering your kitchen with the smell of cooking vinegar

Pickling chillies is also a great way of using up Chillies which are likely to pass their best-by date, i.e. pickle them when they are still fresh and firm, not when they have become wrinkly and are starting to discolour.

Ingredients

150g Green and Red Chillies

150ml warm water

100ml rice vinegar

1 tbls sea salt

2 1/2 tbls icing sugar

Method

Thinly slice the Chillies. If you don’t want your pickled Chillies to be too spicy, you can rinse them in a colander with warm water to remove some of the seeds.

Place the Chillies into a small sterilised jar.

Mix the remaining ingredients in a small jug and pour into the jar over the Chillies.

Cover the jar and keep in the fridge.

Pickled Chillies Sichuan Style

 

The following recipe is the basic instruction about how to make pickled chili peppers at home.

One of the secret of making the pickled Chillies is to lay one layer of ingredients, then salt and Sichuan peppercorn. Repeat the process until all the ingredients are placed.

Ingredients

1 l. water

240 gm. salt

500 gm Chillies

1 tbsls. Sichuan peppercorn

500 gm fresh ginger

Method

Wash your pickling jar carefully and then put aside to drain all the water.

Wash all the ingredients carefully and then drain them thoroughly. There should be no water.

Put the water in a large pan and heat the water to boiling. Then move away from fire to cool down naturally.

Get the dried pickling jar, put one layer of chilli and tender ginger, add one layer of salt and sparkle some Sichuan peppercorns. Repeat again until all the Chillies and ginger are placed.

Pour cooled down water to pickle jar. Make sure that all the ingredients are soaked by water.

Cover the lid and pour some water in the edge to prevent any air goes into the jar.

Put the jar in a cool environment and wait for 7 days.

FREEZING CHILLIES

PREPARED CHILLIES

Freezing your Chillies does not mean directly store them in a vacuumed plastic and keep them in the freezer. You may as well prepare the Chillies before they go to your refrigerator. To prepare Chillies, all you need is to cut the stalks. The seeds must also be removed including the membranes. You can slice the leave or chop it into smaller pieces.

Place the chops on a steel tray (used for baking); let it cold and dry in the freezer (just dry them out but don’t freeze them yet). After half an hour, check the Chillies and pick one to check if it is firm enough. When it is firmed, pick your polythene bags and put them inside. Try to insert a small amount of Chillies per bag. There are practical reasons behind these steps:

Because firming the small pieces will not let the Chilli sticks to each other during freezing.

Because you can use them without opening the whole packages and keep the other packs well preserved.

Because you can simply thaw them in a pan and cook them without having to chop them.

WHOLE CHILLIES

Another way to preserve Chillies by freezing them is to put the whole Chillies in a plastic container. Before freezing the Chillies in whole, you need to make sure that the Chillies are dry. If you grow your own plants and using no pesticides, there is no need to clean the Chillies before storing. Yeah, it’s as simple as that.

ICE CUBED CHILLIES

Another alternative to freeze Chillies is to put it in the ice cube tray after chopped. It is a neat way to preserve Chillies. Once you put them in the ice cube trays, pour water into the tray and leave it to freeze just like you make ice cubes. This idea helps to separate Chillies from sticking together. Once they are completely frozen, take the cubes from the trays and put it inside a plastic bag. Need to use it? Simply take one or two cubes of the Chillies and thaw them!

MAKE SAMBAL OELEK

Ingredients

20 lombok Chillies

2 tsp Salt

Method

Wash and cut the Chillies. You can also use a food processor with blades. Rub the Chillies with the salt in the mortar. Place them into a jar that is cleaned and keep them with the lid on in the refrigerator.