I’ve just had beans on toast for supper. And…? I hear you cry. Well…
I gently sautéed some shallots until they were caramelised and added them to the beans (English recipe it said on the tin…?), then put hefty dollops of Laoganma chilli crisp on top. The result was exceptional, and is now a signature dish.
Any others to share?
Gently fry shallots, garlic and onions. Add a jar of haricot beans, a large dollop of tomato ketchup, a spoonful of barbecue sauce and five drops of liquid smoke. Bubble away till almost dry. Place on toast. Swoon.
Good stuff. Ain’t pulses brilliant? A can of beans, an onion, some tomato product and some spices and you’re good to go. Plus anything else you fancy.
Fry chopped onions, carrots and garlic. Add a tin of drained white beans, Worcestershire sauce and some white wine vinegar. Then add sliced, already cooked good quality sausages plus some chicken stock and simmer for about 20 minutes. Lovely.
Sausage and bean stews are certified winter winners. I tend to use more veg (whatever I’ve got around the place) in mine. Sometimes more than one variety of beans or some chickpeas. Little bit of added chilli does me no harm.
Yes I have also added both those extra ingredients at times.
And the sausages are cooked in the air fryer. Worth buying one just for that. So easy.
I do one with Toulouse sausages from Lidl, leeks, butter beans, bit of stock and pinch of chilli flakes. Sensational, especially with ciabata.
From some 5+ years ago:
Tomato and beetroot soup with gorgonzola on körnerbrot, sausages, mashed potato with extra gorgonzola, auburgine, mushroom and garlic stir fry and a small gin with lemon and elderflower to wash it all down.
I remember that!
The wife (who’s also vegetarian) is trying to have lighter dinners and so a quick / lazy option is miso soup noodles…..
Cook some noodles in boiling water for a few minutes and divide between bowls. In a small saucepan fill with hot water, add a tbsp of white miso, half a tsp of mushroom seasoning, a tsp of dried seaweed, a block of soft tofu cut into cubes and a handful of cherry tomatoes. Heat up and spoon over noodles in bowls.
All done in less than 10 minutes
Best breakfast hack. Take a cinnamon and raisin bagel. Fry cut side down gently in butter until golden brown. flip and fry for another minute.
Remove to a plate and add a sliced banana into the pan (add a little extra butter if needed). Cook for a minute and flip. Add a generous glug of maple syrup and bring to a bubble.
Put the banana and syrup onto the bagels and then add a dollop of (a quenelle if you can be arsed).
Eat whilst hot and then do some exercise to get rid of some of those calories.
Yum. You don’t feel tempted to add a glug of breakfast brandy to the bananas?
A dollop of what? Butter? Anchovy paste? Garlic pickle?
ahh garlic pickle. Now you’re talking
Ahh – I can see the error of typing whislt working. Mascarpone Cheese.
Sounds lovely, but about 3 million calories
Thats why I only eat it every other day.
If you can get trout fillets…for say 500g…Will also work with salmon.
Mix together 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, and 1 teaspoon each of dried oregano, chilli flakes and salt. Slather over the top.
Put a bit of olive oil in a baking dish, bung in the trout fillets, spread the aforementioned mix on top and bake at 200C for 15 mins.
Needs potatoes – mashed? wedges? whatever, and something green – salad? green beans? broccoli?
A LOVELY DINNER!
I go through industrial quantities of chilli crisp and buy it in the big jars. Love it.
Some tips from me:
– Sick of battling pop-ups etc in recipe sites? Click ‘Jump to Recipe’ to avoid the spiel and then ‘Print’ to display a stable, ad-free version of the recipe.
– For beef stir fries, buy Topside, slice it thin and mix with some bicarb for 15 minutes before cooking. This tenderises the beef and is what you have been eating at Chinese restaurants for years.
– Sous vide chicken breast: Season with salt, pepper, sage and a few slices of lemon. I usually do 3 breasts at a time cut in half thickness-wise. I cook at 145F for 90 minutes then store in the fridge as quick meal options. Quickly sear and add to salad or top with a sauce etc on its own. Amazingly juicy.
– Buy a good quality cast iron dutch oven, preferably one where the lid doubles as a pan. I do 90% of my cooking with it in stovetop or oven. A weekly favourite: Buy a boned, rolled pork shoulder and cut into 4 chunks. Season with salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, oregano and a bit of brown sugar and sear on each side in tne dutch oven (and lid). Throw in half a cup of water then put in oven at 150C for 3 hours. Remove, shred with two forks then use in burritos, salad etc. Total pep time is less than 10 minutes and we get 2-3 meals for a family of 4.
Top tip re finding/storing recipes (if memory serves me well this originally came from mikethep?)
Install the Paprika app (was £3.99 but that was a long while ago). Copy and paste the internet link from wherever you’ve found it to the app. Paprika strips away all the peripheral ads etc and leaves just ingredients & instructions. File it under whatever category you like and it’s there at your fingertips forever. I currently have approx 3723 recipes there.
Its shopping list thingie is also great – it automatically places your shopping into categories so you don’t get to the last aisle and think “Bugger, forgot the jammie dodgers”.
It was indeed I. It’s indispensable. I also scan recipes into it from cookbooks and newspapers.
Scan, eh? Who knew? Next thing you know I’ll be texting using my thumbs …
What is chili crisp?
“This year sales of Lao Gan Ma (LGM) chilli sauce — a Chinese brand — have increased 1,145 per cent compared with the same period last year. Lao Gan Ma’s star product is the crispy chilli oil, with the jar made up mostly of flakes of crispy chilli rather than the oil itself. This is the secret: you scoop rather than drizzle, and its fans worship it with a zealous fervour. In her recent Channel 4 series Cook, Eat, Repeat Nigella Lawson spoke in reverential tones about the condiment. “What I need . . . is Chinese crispy chilli. It makes everything sing.”
Chili flakes then, that’s how I know it.
No, quite different. It’s more a red bean sauce with fried chilli in it.
Red bean sauce?
I like to put (spicy) chili oil on my pizza.
I frequently use this stuff. Got it from A**zon.
Our grotty little local supermarket sells almost nothing … but the other day I noticed that they actually had some jars of that Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli oil on the shelves. Amazing.
Just thought of another tip. Buy carbon steel pans and spend an hour seasoning them. Then use them for everything. You can get 3 or 4 for the price of a single non stick pan. Nisbets do good value ones (Vogue). You can get them really hot for searing and they only get better the more you use them.
Can’t beat a nice homemade coleslaw. Basic ingredients – red onion, red cabbage and carrot, either finely sliced, chopped or grated. Add whatever else you have lying around – beetroot, fennel, celeriac, potato (hey presto, potato salad!). Dressing – couple of generous dollops of natural yogurt, one dollop of French mustard, dash of olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, seasoning. Mix together for the perfect slaw. For that added bit of luxury add a generous hunk of finely grated cheddar. Instant gratification for the culinarily challenged.
Not a hack as such, but a simple dish new to Mrs Beezer and me.
Baked Eggs.
In a small oven proof dish you’re happy to eat out of at the table, drizzle a bit olive oil over the base. Crack in 2 or 3 eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Heavier on the pepper than salt. Grate over the top of all this some strong cheese of choice.
Place in oven at a high-ish heat for about 5 minutes or until the whites have become firm. The aim being for the yolk to be still slightly runny under all the cheese. Though it’s all to taste. Doesn’t really matter if they become solid. Sprinkle some herbs or some chopped spring onions over the top as is your wont before taking to the table.
Anyway, the result, along with some hot buttered toast, is joyous.
A few kitchen hacks from a man who takes his pleasures seriously….
grate ginger rather than chop it
always have fresh coriander, always have smoked paprika, a variety of fresh and dried chillies, fresh black pepper
the more finely chopped the garlic, the stronger it’s flavour, but grating it may shred your fingers
fruitcake and stilton makes for a corking pud
one pack of boil-in-the-bag mussels plus a bit of leftover spicy chickpeas/ dhal/ tasty veg splodge makes an awesome soup
no need to cook pasta and tomato sauce separately. Make the sauce, put the pasta on top, add an extra cup of water for pasta to cook in sauce and water, water will be absorbed/ evaporate, the the sauce will be thickened with pasta residue, and the pasta properly coated and al-dente. serve with decent cheese, anchovies, olives and capers to taste.
…and keep the ginger in the freezer. Eminently grateable and no more wrinkly fag ends in the veg drawer!
Yep. A Parmesan grater does a fine job on frozen ginger. And I second Vincent’s suggestion not to cook pasta separately but just throw it in to cook with the sauce. That’s what I’ve done for decades after it occurred to me that that’s exactly how the pasta cooks in a lasagne,
Don’t throw away that broccoli “stump”, julienne it (cut it into thin strips), fry it up with bacon/ham, sliced chilli and garlic to taste, add to a drained pan of your cooked pasta of choice, stir in a good few tablespoons of pesto, job’s a good ‘un…
Don’t throw away the broccoli “stump”, give it to your dogs. They love it!
But dog farts are already atrocious..
“My dog has no nose……..”
Make your bechamel backwards instead of the “correct” way!
It’s quicker, instantly smooth and never, ever lumpy. Make your roux as normal in a small frying pan, then set it aside to cool down a bit. Heat the milk in a separate pot. Just before the milk boils, dump the roux all at once from the frying pan into the milk. Stir with a whisk for ten seconds or so (not particularly vigorously either – it’s not necessary). Go “Ha! It works” as your perfect, silky bechamel appears.
I got this from a Michelin-starred Italian chef, who always makes his bechamel this way and can’t understand why anybody would bother with the faff of dribbling the milk painfully slowly into the roux and praying it doesn’t go lumpy.
Almost all traditional recipes call for a milk/butter/flour proportion of 100-10-10, but that results in a thick sludge that’s far too stodgy for most purposes (e.g. lasagne). For a lighter, silkier result, try 100-80-70 instead. So for half a litre of milk, your roux mix would be 40 g of butter and 35 g of flour. At any rate, the key to silky is to use a bit more butter than flour for your roux.
Excellent! I’ve only recently discovered the warm milk trick, but this is next level. Whether the grandkids will appreciate this hack in their cheesy tuna pasta is another matter.
Excitedly showed this to my wife (who is an excellent cook but is rarely allowed to show her prowess because I really, really like cooking).
“That’s how I was taught in school in 1973” she said and went back to her book .
Delia Smith’s all in one white sauce works every time for me. The butter and flour go straight into the pan of cold milk and you gradually heat it up as you stir it with a balloon whisk until it thickens. No lumps ever. No preparing of a roux beforehand. No roux at all. Once it starts to thicken you can turn it down to a simmer and cook for five minutes.
https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/books/delias-complete-how-to-cook/all-in-one-white-sauce
Does it not give an extra pan to wash though?
This should be stated in all recipes, along with ‘Ingredients You’ll Have To Go Out And Buy Specially, And Never Use Again’ (I’m looking you, saffron and whole nutmeg)
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 50 mins
Serves: 4
Pans: 5
IYHTGOABSANUAs: 3
Re: ‘Ingredients You’ll Have To Go Out And Buy Specially, And Never Use Again’ (I’m looking you, saffron and whole nutmeg)”
Yeah – and you can add sumac and amchur powder to that list, too!
They’ve been hanging around our larder unused for about 17 years.
But why wouldn’t you use saffron?
Essential for Indian cooking, fish stews/soups and of course for your Swedish Christmas baking! It’s not Christmas without saffron… 🙂
Amchur lifts any, any soup to a new level, saffron is essential in risottos, a grating of nutmeg lifts yer stews and sumac is…ok, I agree about sumac – buy some now, find it again in five years time
… standing in the rain outside 10 Downing Street.
It was the Pink Flamingo wasn’t it?
Simplicity – chickenbreast sliced open, stuffed with cream cheese/herbs, wrapped in Parma ham, baked.
Serve with sautéed potatoes, grilled tomatoes and green beans.
“Cream cheese/herbs”: sounds like a job for Boursin.
You’d be surprised (I was) at how many vegetables can be roasted. Try cauliflower florets tossed in olive oil and seasoned with paprika and cumin. 15/20 minutes in a hot oven, yum.
If the oven is on for something else I usually roast the veg, and it’s the only way I ever make chips (half a teaspoon of oil and some veg stock powder stirred into them in a bowl before they go in the oven). Broccoli is good roasted too, placed in a shallow dish with a drizzle of chilli oil and a little seasoning. For both of those I give them half an hour.
Working from home alone today, I made up separate trays of aubergine, pumpkin, peppers and cocktail tomatoes, drizzled them all with oil, scattered them with pepper and salt, then left them in the oven at 140C for a couple of hours. The red peppers and tomatoes later made for an excellent sauce for lunch, the pumpkin livened up a risotto for supper. I haven’t decided what to do with the aubergine yet.
But all in all, a good call – thanks! When I have time enough, I will introduce them into dishes for the rest of the family.
Yes, beetroot, carrots, onions, potatoes (of course), peppers…
Breaking news now, from our hot area correspondent: celeriac roast chips are outstanding too.
I did that last weekend – along with some sweet potato cut into slices. Roasted for 15 mins and then added some apple and pork chops that had been marinated in rosemary/maple/garlic/caraway seeds and then back in for another 15mins, before crumbling on some Stilton and back in for another 5 mins.
Anyone done the same with Jerusalem (f)Artichokes? It’s a very, um, warming experience, for these cold nights.
Or, as my step-dter put it, “those Jehovah’s witnesses didn’t half make me trump!”
Ooohh baby. Name me a meal (within reason) that isn’t improved by adding a pork chop.
Iles flottante?
Swapping out meringues for pork chops works for me. Meringues are the most pointless of foodstuffs. All fur coat and no knickers.
Love meringues A berry pavlola is one of the greatest desserts I have ever had, delicious.
* yes, loads of calories
I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to step outside.
I do rather fancy my chances in a fisticuffs engagement with anyone who partakes in
meringue.
No, you’re not wrong.
Do you want some?*
I’m ‘andy
Literally. SWIDT.
*nice piece of cake.
Cake or death?
Cake please.
This isn’t a hack, it’s proper grown-up cookery. We stumbled across an amazing cookbook called Epic Salads, written by a NZ lady called Jessica Prescott. Its USP is no fewer than 11 dressings, from basic balsamic via chilli lime, coconut satay, lemon tahini yoghurt, spicy peanut to the GOAT (goat’s cheese, Greek yoghurt and dill), and the recipes are organised by their dressings.
There’s way too much tofu in it for my liking (it’s veggie), and obviously you have to be at least vaguely interested in salad, but once I discovered you can substitute chicken for tofu with no ill effects I relaxed. It’s a lot of work, mind – tonight’s effort, satay tofu (chicken) and edamame bowl with coconut satay dressing involved four separate cooking sections, but boy was it worth it. I’ve also made marinated black beans with tortilla strips, spicy peanut slaw with tofu (chicken) croutons and almonds, and tomato salad with fried capers and pine nuts. All totally delicious and pleasingly healthy too.
It’s published in the UK in April. In the mean time you can feast your eyes on some recipes here.
Poach chicken breasts. Have boiling chicken stock and then add breasts, get to a simmer and then simmer for 10 mins. Take out the breasts and keep the stock for noodle soup the next day. Eat the chicken breast however you want.
Only one pan as well.
Love poaching chicken. A dab of Chinese five spice or star anise works wonders too.
I have some star anise from a left over recipe (Chiz style). Will chuck one in next time.
It’s also a good trick for the times when you want to use chicken in a dish but only have frozen breasts and don’t want to have to remember to take them out in advance. Just poach them, take them out of the stock before completely done (so around 15 minutes, as poaching from frozen takes 20 minutes) and carve them up into pieces of wanted size, then chuck them into the stew, stir fry, or whatever you’re making, and finish cooking them with the rest of the ingredients.
Ingenious.
Chicken breasts? Pah.
Buy a formerly very happy chicken. Roast it for 75 mins, rest for 10, carve, enjoy. Put rest in fridge.
Couple of days later, take all the remaining meat off, carcass back in fridge. Make stew or whatever (current favourite – onion, garlic, red pepper, jar of artichoke hearts, bulghar wheat).
Gosh, still some meat left – chicken salad or sarnie for lunch.
Bung carcass in freezer. When you have 2 or even three, place in large pot with onions, carrots etc. An hour later you have a chicken stock your Jewish grandmother would approve. Use stock to make delicious soup or add some to virtually any dish you can think of.
One chicken, four meals plus stock/soup. Walk past those supermarket overpriced flaccid water-filled breasts with a smug smile and a full wallet.
Chicken breasts are the most flavourless part of any fowl. Which might lead me onto my rant about so-called ‘peasant cuts’ of meat, if I could be arsed.
Sure, but that’s why you poach them in a good stock with added herbs etc…I prefer to use thigh meat, but I don’t like what freezing does to them, and sometimes it’s a good idea to have some meat in the freezer for emergencies; hence the frozen breasts!
This is a thread about food hacks, not about gourmet cooking! 😉
Thigh on the bone for coq au vin. Yum.
Roasting a chicken is not gourmet methinks ..just saying a whole chicken gives you 3 or 4 meals – a hack I call that.
I agree
A simple hack to add a layer of umami to any soup, stew, curry, whatever (particularly veggie dishes) – spoonful of mushroom ketchup added at the end of cooking. It makes more difference than you would think such a small quantity would.
Unfortunately the mushroom ketchup seems hard to come across now ( I know we’ve discussed this before). I bought a large carrier bagful of mushrooms on the market for 50p recently.
Having cooked some of them, soup and garlic mushrooms etc I sliced and then dried lots on the radiators.
After soaking I use the resulting liquor as replacement mushroom ketchup.
Frozen avocado is good if you are making guacamole, also because fresh avocados are a lottery and frequently disappoint in being underripe/overripe avocadoing free.
Buns (homebaked natch) for having with coffee that are frozen take 15-20 seconds in the microwave and tend to be more moist that way than slowly defrosted in the room.
Buns with coffee? Is this the time for one of those
“they’re rolls/baps/barmcakes/teacakes/doughcakes”
moments?
Inspired by a caff in Crystal Palace … egg on toast.
Fry your egg in chili oil. Cover the yolk with sesame seeds, crispy onions, sliced spring onions and sliced red chilli. Serve on top of a slice of sourdough. Delicious.
That’s one to try!
Like the sound of that
I was using up leftovers this morning: Halloumi fried with chorizo in olive oil then eggs cooked in the residue.
Given a version of this a go for lunch. No seeds or onion but a mix of crispy chilli oil and sesame oil. Gently fried served on sourdough toast with flaked sea salt. I’ll be doing that again.
I’m not sure what a hack is actually, but we have made a few things lately and chucked in some £1 coin size slices of Lidl spicy chorizo and it lifts anything to lush territory. We’ve been big on tray bakes recently. The deliciousness to effort ratio is very positive.
Chorizo, gently fried to a bit of a crisp and a jar of those fancy Bean Company beans added is an excellent base to serve chicken and greens with.
Friend of mine’s favourite quick grub is spag with a jar of pesto and some crisp fried chorizo mixed in.
My Chilli Con-Coction contains Sliced Spicy Chorizo Ring.
About half of one is generally enough to lift the Chilli up without swamping the taste of 500g of beef.
A whole diced onion, big clove of garlic finely chopped, sweat in a little olive oil and then add two teaspoons of smoky chipotle flakes, chuck in the beef and brown it. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a sweet pepper roughly-chopped, the chorizo and a heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder. Add a splash of red wine or some beer (not stout). Not too much. Simmer slowly for at least an hour, making sure it doesn’t stick and burn.
Makes enough for a few meals. Portion up the rest and freeze.
When did advice and suggestions become “a hack”?
(Get with it Grandad, it’s what all the cool kids are saying)
I always preferred the term household hints.
I assumed that a food hack was someone like Kelth Floyd, the overfamiliar TV chef who Nigel Farage seems to have modelled himself on
Keith Floyd will always be one of the all time greatest TV cooks purely due to the fact he used The Stranglers “Waltzinblack” as his theme tune.
When making pasta on a weekend boil extra water and then freeze in individual one serving bags to defrost and re-use later in the week.
or enjoy them as savoury starch ice lollies.
A (very) low calorie treat
I just made this Roasted Red Pepper sauce. Really easy and very good, can be frozen in portions of course.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/really-easy-roasted-red-pepper-sauce
Boiled eggs, we love them? But they always need salt. Salting the eggs after every scoop is too much salt. So salt the toast before you cut them into soldiers.
Good plan!
Eggs.
Boiling time?
Poaching method?
How make sure your fried egg yolk doesn’t burst?
I’m 58 and I think my success rate with eggs is about 70%.
There will be as many opinions on boiling eggs as there are Afterworders.
But I said goodbye to burst yolk misery by getting a small bowl with a lip, into which I crack the egg(s), and then gently slide into the pan.
that’s the way, or just crack into a glass first (or indeed any receptacle, check for ham-fisted cracking and yolk breakage and lower gently into pan.
Very useful tips – thanks! One thing I have picked up is the best way to quickly remove a stray piece of egg shell is to scoop it up with another piece of egg shell.
Must be a big pan. Do you take your shoes off first?
Arf! 🙄
Boling time (depending on egg size of course, but I’m talking “standard” if there is such a thing).
Soft boiled – 3 minutes. Boil water first, place egg into water off a spoon
Hard boiled – eggs into cold water, bring to boil, 8 minutes. Pour off boiling water, rinse in cold water, shake to crack shell, sit in cold water for 2 minutes.
Remove shell, mash eggs (with slightly runny yolk), add salad cream, smack between two slices of buttered bread – perfick egg sandwich
Hard-boiled. Apart from the eggs and the salad cream it sounds lovely.
Always, always gently crack eggs on a flat surface then tip into a small jug before frying, scrambling etc.
Boiling eggs is a complicated science. What works on my gas cooker is small pan, just cover two eggs with cold water, stick lid on. As soon as the water is bubbling properly, turn off gas and leave for precisely three minutes. Slice top off, salt and dip yer soldiers. Tried that once on one of them modern induction thingies – disaster.
Why was it a disaster?
Bloody induction was too fast, too efficient. Water boiled in 27.3 seconds but sticking to my tired & tested formula I carried on. Undercooked then overcooked. Disaster.
A few days later I reverted to my dear old mum’s method. Boil water, gently lowered eggs in, clamp on lid, leave for 5 mins. Success!
Yes, they take a bit of getting used to. I’ll never go back, though – especially now we know how toxic gas cookery is for those with challenged lungs.
Don’t know if ’tired and tested’ was a typo or not, but I’m stealing it.
Usual royalties apply
Mmm…salad cream and egg sandwich…
Ramen eggs (cooked white, runny yolk) what always works for me is cold eggs into boiling water for 6 minutes exactly and then into ice water.
(I always use cold eggs as living in a tropical climate, they are always stored in the fridge)
I can reliably make perfect poached eggs. You need those silicone cups that sit in half an inch of water. Wipe the inside of the cup with olive oil and break the egg into it. Switch on the grill. Once the water is boiling, put the lid on the pan and put the bread under the grill. Set the timer for 5 minutes. Take grill out when one side is toasted, turn bread over and arrange success of cheese. Put back under grill. When the timer goes off the cheese on toast will be perfectly cooked and the poached egg will be firm but runny inside. Run a knife around the edge of the egg and turn onto the toast. Consume immediately with a blob of HP sauce on the side. Bask in praise from attractive wife for making a perfect egg.
From the same book as her white sauce/bechamel method called How To Cook, Delia Smith has a foolproof way with a poached egg. You use a frying pan and fill it with boiling water from a kettle. Get it to a slight simmer then gently launch your egg from out of it’s shell. After one minute of simmer take it off the heat and leave for ten minutes then take out of the water with a slotted spoon so it drains. Serve immediately.
This method avoids turbulence in the water that will tear the egg white apart. Also being shallow water, it is easier to get out and hold the shape. I think the moulds make the white a bit hard. Delia’s How To Cook rules I reckon. Her books are the best. Tried and tested. Realistic for what the average person can achieve.
I love that book. My copy is ancient but used regularly. But 10 minutes is too long. We’ll have eaten mine by the time you’re are ready, and I can’t imagine the yolks are runny. But out of respect to Saint Delia I’ll give it a try!
You can do more than one at a time! 10 minute wait is a downside.
It’s only an issue if you start late.
A genuine hack rather than a recipe (tsk tsk): for things that require frying gently in butter, adding a teaspoon’s worth of olive oil will prevent the butter from burning.
Reading these, I wonder what we did and how we survived before chilli became central to UK cooking. I certainly couldn’t live without it.
Absolutely. Here’s my mother-in-law Trish’s chilli relish recipe:
400g long red chillies (can chuck in a scotch bonnet or two for added punch)
1large onion
1 clove garlic
1 large Granny Smith
apple cider vinegar to cover
80g sugar
Mince all ingredients.
Cover with vinegar and bring to boil.
Add sugar and let bubble for 10-15 mins, stirring frequently. Into sterilised jars and seal. Leave for a day or two for flavours to develop.
Up to you whether you leave seeds in or not, peel apple or not, brown or white sugar. She prefers malt vinegar, I prefer apple cider. You never know what the heat will be, which adds to the fun. But it’s always delicious.
What is it? Sounds very strange.
Does it? This isn’t mine, but it looks like this. Delicious on avocados, eggs, bangers, anything really.
Ah so it’s a sauce!
Well no, it’s more of a relish really. Or a chutney if you prefer.
It looks like a sambal to me.
Is that a ride, crash or splash sambal?
It’s not a cowbal.
That was just a looks-like photo to put Twang out of his misery. I call it relish because that’s what Trish calls it. Sambal has stuff like ginger, lemongrass, shrimp paste.
Indeed. We have grown them the past few years and last year had a Basket of Fire variety which were fantastic. They grew to about an inch and a half and you could plan for one per person when cooking (one for the pot over 4) with that lovely real chilli heat which doesn’t burn your throat but instead a gentle but insistent glow from within. The last half dozen were dried and crushed into flakes which are now sadly all gone. I can hardly wait for the spring to grow more.
Pop a slice of buttered bread with a bit of sea salt on top in the air fryer for a couple of minutes or so. If you’re feeling adventurous add a sprinkling of dukkah. Salt Bae impression optional.