Chillies

In my view the lovely taste of chilli often gets overlooked because of its spiciness. This sweet chilli jam recipe is one way of preserving the freshness and taste of chillis without burning your tongue off. You can vary the number of chillies as you like to cater to your own tastes. I have used a recipe which gives a kick but is sweet enough to allow you to put a big dollop in a BLT.

Drying chillies, herbs and chilli jam 

Sweet Chilli Jam

Ingredients

Red peppers, chillies, red onion, garlic and ginger

Large red onion
600g plum tomatoes (you can use cherry)
5 red peppers
6 large red chillies
Thumb sized piece of ginger
6 cloves garlic
700g sugar (I use a mix of granulated and brown)
200ml cider vinegar

Method

This recipe is really easy. Just chop your veg and grate your ginger and put to the side (if you prefer you can save time by using a food processor). Be careful when chopping chillies that you don't rub your eyes and nose as it will sting! If you have any cuts on your fingers wear plastic gloves. You will have to do this at least partly by hand as you need to remove the seeds from the chillies.

Heat the vinegar and sugar in a large saucepan until it is clear and then add the other ingredients. Simmer until the mixture has a thick jam consistency (this could take about 40 minutes). This will take a surprisingly long time due to all the water in the tomatoes.

Boil for a minute and then pour into hot sterilised jars (see plum chutney post for tips on this).  Label and give to chilli lovers as a much appreciated gift!

Red pepper and chilli jam

Cost 

I got all my ingredients from the local market as tomatoes and peppers can be expensive. I was luck enough to get 1kg tomatoes, 6 peppers and a huge bowl of chillies for £2 making this a steal to make. See below for how I used the rest of the chillies!

Drying chillies and herbs

Drying chillies and herbs

If you have extra chillies you can easily dry them in your kitchen like this. String them onto thread with a needle and thread and tie them up in a warm place in your kitchen for a couple of weeks. Leave them there until you want to crumble them into sauces / stews / curries or when they are totally dry store them in a jar.
This works for leftover herbs too. I find I often have lots left when I buy herbs from the supermarket. Rosemary and thyme dry particularly well.

Eating your chilli jam

My favourite way to eat chilli jam is on my semi-virtuous hangover day fry up. This recipe is great for when you feel a bit ill or miserable and lazy and want a fry up without consuming too much animal fat. It also uses very few ingredients!

Ingredients

2 inches chorizo sausage
1 sweet potato
Green beans
1 egg

Put a very small amount of oil in a pan and fry the sliced chorizo for a couple of minutes until it starts to release it's own oil.
Microwave your sweet potato if you want to cut down on frying time and add it to the pan with your green beans (and any other green veg you feel like adding). Fry until lightly browned, push to the side and add your egg. Fry the egg until the white is all opaque and transfer to a plate. Add a large dollop of chilli jam and enjoy!

This recipe counts as two of your five a day and contains much less fat than your traditional fry up and much more flavour.