Pickled Chillies

Technically, I haven't made anything because I used ready-made pickling vinegar, but I'm still posting up my pickled chillies (apache & cheyenne)

Traffic Light Chilli Jam

Following the success of my chilli jam last year I decided to experiment a bit this year and try making traffic light chilli jam.

I more or less followed the same recipe as last time which for one batch is:

• 300g peppers (I tended to use this quantity in sweet peppers, then added 4-5 chillies depending on how hot they were).
• 600ml vinegar (I used either white wine or cider)
• 1kg jam sugar

For the red I used bellboy, sweet banana, apache and cayenne.

For the amber I used luteus (supplemented with shop bought orange peppers) and cheyenne.

For the green I used unripe versions of whatever looked greenest.

Here are the results

Taste wise, the green is definitely the mildest; I assume because the chillies haven't ripened yet so have less heat... still has a kick though.

Caramelised (Red) Onion Chutney

I recently harvested a tonne (maybe a slight exaggeration) of onions (here and here), so decided to have a go at making some onion chutney. I searched the internet and found a few recipes... they weren't that different so this is what I used:

• 8 of my finest electric onions (you can use any onions)

• 2 of my pickled apache chillies (recipes said to use either a chilli pepper or peppercorns)

• 2 bay leaves
• olive oil (couple of tablespoons)
• 300ml vinegar - half balsamic, half red wine (recipes said you could use pretty much any vinegar or combination)
• 200g brown sugar

This is what I did:

Sliced the onions and added to the pan with the olive oil, chillies and bay leaves.

Cooked until they were soft and had a bit of colour on them (I had expected the insides to be red!)

Added the sugar and vinegar.

Stirred to dissolve the sugar then left it to simmer...

... until it looked like chutney... the times in the different recipes varied from 30 minutes to one and a half hours, mine took closer to the latter.

I fished out the bay leaves and then decanted into warm sterilised jars. The finished result.

Delicious. I'll definitely be making some more of this one.

The Verdict

I finally got round to trying some of my preserves over Christmas and have to say I was extremely pleased with the results...

... tomato & pepper relish really did taste as good as something you could buy in the shops - I can't wait to try it on a burger.

... pickled green tomatoes were quite sweet, I was expecting them to taste more like pickles. They are lovely with both cheese and ham.

... pumpkin chutney was a total delight, I will definitely be making more of that next year.

... pickled cucumbers, once again are just as good as the ones you can buy. I will have to put more effort into growing onions for pickling next year.

The only thing left to try is cucumber and apple chutney, hopefully I will enjoy that just as much as the others.

Tomato & Pepper Relish

This was another new recipe for me and I used tomatoes that were just under ripe. This required:

2 lbs Tomatoes
1 lb Onions
1/2 tbsp Salt
1 medium Red Pepper
1/2 tbsp Mustard Seeds
4 oz White Sugar
8 fl oz White Wine Vinegar

This is what I did:

Peel and finely chop the tomatoes and onions (I didn't actually peel the tomatoes, but the recipe said to do that). Mix together in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and leave overnight (I left them all day rather than overnight).

Put the tomatoes and onions in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Drain well.

De-seed and finely chop the pepper. Mix with the mustard seeds, tomatoes and onions in a bowl.

In a pan, mix the sugar and vinegar, heat gently to dissolve the sugar then bring to the boil.

Add the contents of the bowl, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Decant into hot sterilised jars and seal. Store for about 4 weeks before opening.

I did try this and it tastes very nice now... I assume it gets better as it matures.