Peruvian lemon drop chillies, a hot sauce direct from the garden
We eat a LOT of chillies chez Bighomebird, adding fresh red ones to salads and stir fries and green ones to curries. There is always a pot of them in the fridge. I like to experiment by growing different varieties in pots over the summer too, there is a huge range of flavours as well as heat and they are fantastic fresh from the plant. This year I planted a Peruvian lemon drop, a smallish chilli that ripens to a bright yellow and a bhut jolokia (also known as the ghost chilli), rather frighteningly high on the Scoville scale (a friend from India swears these are being tested as a potential weapon by the Indian Army). Both grew well despite not having had the best of British summers and I got a decent crop from both. A tiny nibble from a red and rather ugly looking bhut jolokia chilli could detect no great heat but a rather fruity flavour, similar in a way to Scotch Bonnet but poking a tentative tongue into the centre certainly revealed where the heat lay, I can confirm that these are pretty spicy indeed! The lemon drop chillies are certainly hot too but much more manageable and the heat dissipates a little after chopping. The most amazing thing about these particular chillies is their scent, gloriously citrussy, fruity and downright addictive. I'm serious here, I couldn't stop sniffing them. I used many of these in salads so the scent remained but with the final picking before the cold weather, I wanted to try to preserve them in a recipe that retained the beautiful fragrance. Searching on the web, I came across this recipe for a hot sauce and thought I give it a go. I adapted it slightly for my own preferences, recipe below.
Peruvian Lemon Drop hot sauce
25-30 Peruvian lemon drop chillies, deseeded (but depending on your heat tolerance leave 1 or 2 whole)
240ml organic apple cider vinegar
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
60ml extra virgin olive oil plus 1 tbsp
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
a good pinch of sea salt
One sterilised small bottle
Simmer the split chillies in the vinegar for a minute to two to soften them then tip everything including the liquid into a food processor. Toast the spices in a hot pan until warm and fragrant and then grind into a powder in a pestle and mortar. Add these to the vinegar mixture in the processor. Warm a tbsp of olive oil and gently fry the chopped garlic until soft but not browned. Add the cooked garlic, a good pinch of salt and 60ml of extra virgin olive oil to the rest of the ingredients in the processor. Now, a word of warning, before turning on, make sure the processor lid is sealed and if in doubt wrap a sheet or two of kitchen roll or a tea towel around it (I found out too late that my seal was little dodgy and was sprayed with a rather toxic hot, spicy and vinegary solution straight in the face). Blitz the mixture as fine as you can and then pour through a sieve into a jug to catch any larger pieces. Push as much as you can through the sieve before bottling into a sterilised bottle. Allow to cool and store in the fridge. It should keep for at least a month but you will use it before then. Use it, as suggested in the original recipe, as a base for salad dressings or pour it over everything as I do.
Peruvian Lemon Drop hot sauce
25-30 Peruvian lemon drop chillies, deseeded (but depending on your heat tolerance leave 1 or 2 whole)
240ml organic apple cider vinegar
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
60ml extra virgin olive oil plus 1 tbsp
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
a good pinch of sea salt
One sterilised small bottle
Simmer the split chillies in the vinegar for a minute to two to soften them then tip everything including the liquid into a food processor. Toast the spices in a hot pan until warm and fragrant and then grind into a powder in a pestle and mortar. Add these to the vinegar mixture in the processor. Warm a tbsp of olive oil and gently fry the chopped garlic until soft but not browned. Add the cooked garlic, a good pinch of salt and 60ml of extra virgin olive oil to the rest of the ingredients in the processor. Now, a word of warning, before turning on, make sure the processor lid is sealed and if in doubt wrap a sheet or two of kitchen roll or a tea towel around it (I found out too late that my seal was little dodgy and was sprayed with a rather toxic hot, spicy and vinegary solution straight in the face). Blitz the mixture as fine as you can and then pour through a sieve into a jug to catch any larger pieces. Push as much as you can through the sieve before bottling into a sterilised bottle. Allow to cool and store in the fridge. It should keep for at least a month but you will use it before then. Use it, as suggested in the original recipe, as a base for salad dressings or pour it over everything as I do.
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