Chilli Jam...

A couple of times a year I make my extra spicy preferred accompaniment to, well, just about everything really. Its cheap (especially if you make your own pectin, grow your own chillies or visit a market), easy to make and lasts ages.

Ingredients

800g to 1kg of whatever fresh chillies you can get

1kg granulated sugar

2 lemons (juice of) 

250ml distilled (clear) malt vinegar

250ml bottle of Certo apple pectin (most supermarkets stock it)

Oh and a pinch of salt, you don't actually need it but I'm not sure if this actually counts as a recipe without 'a pinch of salt'.

Method

NB - for gentlemen partaking, have a pee before you start. If you need  go half way through (and even if you wash your hands several times first) you WILL regret it and end up sitting in a bath of cold water praying for the pain to go away. Do not rely on rubber gloves either! This is the voice of experience, not recent experience but you'll never forget it.

Wash and chop the chillies nice and small. I cheated and used a mini food processor. Now as I like to use just a tiny amount of chilli jam, say in a burger, I make it nice and hot. About a fifth of my chillies are evil little scotch bonnets.

Put the lemon juice, vinegar and sugar in a large pan and warm up over a gentle heat just to dissolve the sugar, stir only occasionally if needed. Stirring too much can recrystallize the sugar and then its a bin job.

Once its just about dissolved and clear add the chopped chillies. Give a quick stir and increase the heat to a simmer. This needs to be reduced in volume by about one fifth. Stir only occasionally.

Once it has reduced and ever so slightly thickened, ramp up the heat to a rolling boil and keep it bubbling evilly for a few minutes. Be careful of splashes and breathing too much of the steam (unless you need to clear out your sinuses).

Take off the heat and stir in the the whole 250ml of Certo pectin. Leave off the heat to cool slightly and bottle into small sterilised jars. Because it is so spicy I use 100ml kilner jars. If you bottle it whilst its too hot the chillies may well all float to the top, I try and wait a good twenty minutes so it starts to set a bit.

Notes

This recipe makes about 1.25 litres of very firm set chilli jam. If you want it softer use about 3/4 of a bottle of Certo, closer to 1/2 a bottle should be more of a sauce consistency.

This is just a basic recipe. I've made it with garlic and ginger (fry the garlic first or the vinegar will turn it bright green), and smoked chilli and lime with not so hot chillies and as a softer set for more of a dipping sauce consistency.

If you make this late in the summer Google a recipe for making pectin from crab apples. It works very well and halves the cost. My batch cost just under £5 with the shop bought pectin and the chillies were bought for £1.40 from Birmingham market.

Uses

Goes great on toast, muffins and bagels (just a tiny bit) topped with cream cheese. Chilli & phily.

On just about anything BBQ'd 

Half a teaspoon, and a couple of tablespoons each of yoghurt and mayo makes a great dip.

With some oil and soy sauce as a basting marinade for fish and chicken.

A little bit gives a nice kick to a beef stew or any pasta sauce, Chilli Mac 'n' cheese - nnnyyummmm.

Not too many ingredients in the basic recipe

Ready to simmer and reduce by about one fifth

Reduced and slightly thickened, ready for the full boil and pectin

.

That should last the summer!

A MINI CURRY COURSE

intro...

I have tried to make this a simple way to learn how to make a good curry - as good as you will get in most restaurants and takeaways. The idea is that you can remember the steps and not have to refer back to a specific recipe ever again. 

So the first step to every curry I make is 'Red Stuff'

HOW TO MAKE RED STUFF

Equipment - either soup blitzer and tall jug or mini processor or big processor or manual tabletop mincer or knife and board - in that order of preference for me. Pan, spoon small knife

No need for a board yet, cut like most of the rest of the world do; using a small knife in your dominant hand sharp bit pointing towards you with the food between sharp bit and thumb (no scrubbing to get garlic and onion smells out of the board!)

1. Cut up an onion into blitzing jug, follow with -

2. Four cloves of garlic, peeled and cut

3. An inch or so of ginger, peeled and cut

4. Those fresh tomatoes that are going squidgey (3ish) in the back of the fridge

5. Top the jug up to about three quarters of the food height with cold water

6. Blitz til smoothish and looks like something a fit person may call breakfast before they power walk to the office.

7. Chuck it in a pan, bung it on top of the stove

8. Drool at the fresh smell as it warms up

9. When it is about half what it was, you have made enough red stuff for two or three portions :-)

Next - changing red stuff to brown stuff

HOW TO MAKE BROWN STUFF

Brown stuff is different every time depending on the type of curry you are making. Don't let lots of ingredients put you off, build up and experiment. Start off with the most basic - just curry powder.

1. Warm up a pan

2. Add a drop of oil

3. Plop in a knob of butter and warm until starting to foam - don't rush it

4. Add curry powder. Either follow the tin or about a teaspoon per person and one for the pot (or was that Darjeeling?)

5. Once the curry powder has fried for a minute add some red stuff (half a mug full should be enough) and salt to taste.

6. Let the flavours get to know each other for a while (on gawd, I've gone all Nigella) and you're done - you now have brown stuff :-)

The curry I am making whilst writing this just has different brown stuff. Instead of just curry powder I will fry off the following NOTE MY SPOONS ARE CURRY SPOONS, ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS AN OLD COFFEE SPOON

A spoon of yellow mustard seeds, two spoons of turmeric, a spoon of curry powder, a spoon of cumin, a spoon of garam marsala a spoon of coriander seeds and three green cardamon pods (smashed up with a pestle and mortar), no chili as I put a fresh one in my red stuff and a few dry curry leaves a bit later.

Next - changing red stuff to brown stuff to curry

OK Changing red stuff to brown stuff to curry

What kind of curry to do. I'm doing vegi. Its not that I've gone all ethical and all 'poor little bunny rabbits', we ran out of meat a week ago so its either vegi or  hotdog and pickled onion curry?) - one thing's for sure I'm never going to admit to my vegi sister in-law that I actually prefer home made curry to be vegi - no, no way.

Right steps one

Chicken - brown the chicken, take it out of the pan, start making brown stuff

Lamb - brown the lamb, take it out of the pan.... See a pattern here?

Pork - brown the.... I'm sure you get it by now!

Vegi is a bit more involved, cut your chosen veg (I prefer a bit of a theme) having the hardest smallest and softest largest. E.G. a piece of spud needs to be smaller than a piece of courgette unless you want to cook everything individually first (boring!) or end up with spud in courgette sauce!

1. Colour all your veg in turn and store on a plate

2. Add a bit more oil if needed and foam a knob of butter

3. Gently fry all the spices, the mustard seeds may pop a bit

4. Add some red stuff and slowly cook into brown stuff

5. Brown stuff is too thick unless you want a dry curry and your meat/veg cooks very quickly. Like chicken breast (it will be nearly cooked from browning it), prawns, mushroom etc. If you are cooking anything else you will need to add water. Cooking lamb and beef will need the brown stuff as watery as the red stuff was at the beginning and, ideally a few hours slow cooking.

6. Cook with a lid on to start with and once the meat/veg starts to soften take the lid off to reduce any liquid or add a bit more if needed.

And that's it, simples....

I like to have a theme to the veg; Mediterranean, Root veg etc 

It looks a lot more chopped up - you can see the dish of  'RED STUFF' in the background

Frying the veg - the other pan is the Bombay potato 

RED STUFF added to spices to make BROWN STUFF

Ready for dishing - how many pans can you fit on your stove?

So you know the basic procedure; fry what you've got, take it out, fry the spices, add red stuff (turns into brown stuff) add water and put your veg/meat back in. Watch the rugby, have a beer.

Now the keen eyed my have recognised in my photos that the spuds are not in the vegi pan and the vegi pan has some white lumps on top.

Bombay potatoes - fry spuds, put on a plate, fry a spoon of black onion seeds, a spoon of mustard seeds, two spoons turmeric and salt/pepper. Add some red stuff and cook to brown stuff add water and spuds and cook slowly, once cooked and the liquid absorbed add a chopped fresh tomato and let it sit with a lid on.

White lumps - Now as if home made curry and Bombay potatoes isn't impressive enough how about home made Indian cheese!!

No seriously, you're going to make paneer! I had put it off for years, assuming it was going to be very technical. Since first making it I had decided to keep my little secret but it is the season for sharing :-)

PANEER

First the hard bit - the equipment you will need is

Pan

Square of muslin (its cheap, please no tights or socks!)

Large circular cutter, egg frying ring or off cut of a drain pipe.

Glass of water

And the easy bit the ingredients

Milk

Lemon

That's it, this really is as easy as making hot chocolate, and quicker.

1. Boil milk

2. As it starts to boils add lemon juice

3. Lower the heat and stir for a minute or two

4. Strain through muslin and put it in the ring

5 weigh down with the glass of water

By the time its cooled down it will have set in to a puck shape and be solid enough to fry!

Amazing :-)

Full Fat will produce more cheese

Don't make it if you've got a hangover

Ready to strain

It can be a bit sticky, but will soon solidify

All ready for frying

Next - 'I want a korma!'

I want a #1 korma

Well I don't but somebody will! or at least something identifiable from a takeaway menu, so a couple of variations on the basic theme I'm going to assume for ease of writing that all main curry dishes are now chicken. So korma -

1. Seal the chicken and put it on a plate

2. Not much in the way of spices in this "curry" but I'd suggest, a touch of cumin, half spoon curry powder, touch of gara masala, touch of fenugreek (well you have got to have enough in it to at least call it a curry) two spoons of turmeric. Add a little salt, good couple of spoonfuls white sugar, and a tablespoon each of ground almonds and coconut (don't worry if they're a bit out of date, I doubt you will have much of it, stick to the proper curry) Fry this nice and slowly (no browning) in oil and a bit more butter than is healthy.

3. Add some red stuff and cook it into brown stuff.

4. Now the really healthy bit, rather than water, thin down with double cream (add a bit of creme fraiche if available) and bung the chicken back in.

Cook on a low heat and stir regularly. It won't need more than a few minutes and catches easily (the only thing worse than a korma is a speckled korma)

I'm not a fan of the English restaurant type korma, to me its like chicken in custard. If you fancy making it a little more authentic only use a little cream, get the rest of the sauce by firstly marinading the chicken in yogurt with some turmeric and spices and braise the whole lot slowly. It may look a little watery to start with but tastes better.

I want a #2 Dhansak

Hot and spicy, sweet and sour - my favorite!

1. Seal the chicken and put it on a plate

2. Fry some spices, I'd suggest - curry powder, cumin, ground coriander, dried chili, mustard seeds, a couple of spoons of turmeric, some salt and a couple of spoons of sugar

3. Add some red stuff and cook for a while

A Dhansak has a couple of key ingredients that separate it from the rest, dhal and pineapple

4. Boil a handful of red lentils in water until tender (lentils and yellow split peas mixed are better but take longer to cook)

5. Using the equipment that you made red stuff with, blitz a small can of pineapple, or a few rings from a bigger tin and keep the rest for homemade pizza :-)

6. Put the chicken back in the brown stuff, add the pineapple, more water if needed and then the cooked and drained lentils.

7. Adjust the seasoning to your taste. You can use a splash of lemon juice or vinegar to increase the acidity, I prefer tamarind soaked in a little hot water and strained through a tea strainer using the liquid sparingly as it can be quite bitter.

Job done...

Now from here on don't worry too much about which spices you use, start to experiment and use the ones you like, I don't feel that it has to conform to a particular recipe and there is no chance of remembering what quantity of ten different spices goes in your favorite five curries so just remember the theme. It will at the very least be better than out of a jar.

Korma - mild, sweet, coconut and almond

Dhansak - hot/sweet/sour, pineapple, lentils

Ceylon - hot rich curry stew, lemon, coconut, lots of crushed black pepper

Satay - medium, basic curry with chunky peanut butter

Jalfreze - medium/hot, basic curry but add onion peppers and chili to chicken when frying at the beginning keep it chunky

Dupiaza - means double onion (or two types of onion, one fried and one boiled or poached) chunks of onion poached then fried with the chicken (about the same volume of meat and onion)

Back aboard...

We had a great weekend in Wales visiting Mum and Dad. Later Saturday we were taken out for dinner to the Ship in Tresaith a few miles up the coast. The pub is above a rugged little cove which points directly west, you get some lovely sunsets over here (and about half an hour more light in the evenings). 

We went clubbin Cardigan style on Sunday. That meant Golf club for a drink (full membership is less than I used to pay for use of a driving range on the South coast) and then on to the Boating club for another drink :) before going home for a Sunday roast and watching a wholly inappropriate DVD in front of Granddad - he took it all in his stride as usual.  

Sadly we had to get the car back to Daventry by lunchtime Monday which we managed with time spare to stop for a coffee somewhere near Redditch. We had decided to take the long way round heading towards Cardiff, across the Severn and up through Gloucester to avoid any snowy parts.

The wind hadn't abated when we got back to LJ in Napton and it was still bloomin cold. I swept the chimney quickly and we got the fire lit. It was just above freezing so I was glad that I had done a mini drain down of the water system.

I bought Dad a spice Dabba for Christmas but, tsk tsk, he hasn't made use of it yet. He has forgotten how good he was at making curry back in the early 80's and how his mates Nick and Paul used to come round on a Saturday evening for a good old curry binge long before there was anywhere in west Wales to get a takeaway. The closest thing you could get to a curry was a Vesta pre-packed dehydrated something or other. So for Dad and Jess (who loves curries and cooking for friends on her day off) I have written a mini curry course that I developed to get the maximum amount of fresh flavours for my curries and a simple way to get them tasting fairly similar every time, it even includes ahow to make Paneer. It also uses a couple of key simple stages so it is quite easy to make a few different dishes from one starting point - I expect a curry banquet next time I visit, all homemade!!

I do think that it is important to be able to cook what you like to eat when living aboard for two reasons. Firstly some of us haven't got the budged to pay for the takeaways and restaurant meals that we used to when we lived in bricks and mortar; secondly, even if we have got the necessary funds how often are we moored in the middle of nowhere when we really fancy a curry, sweet 'n' sour or pizza?

My two Spice Dabba's

I have added it to a new tab at the top of my home page along with anything else recipe-wise I have put on the blog. It is quite a lot of reading but worth it - well if you like curry ;)

Not just for the Welsh folk...

I was dragged up in Wales in an area where nobody ate welsh cakes and virtually nobody spoke welsh. My best mate at school was related to just about everyone, frequently I would hear him say "no chance, she is my cousin as well!" His dad was a baker, he didn't make welsh cakes either. The costal seafood was both prolific and fantastic. There was no fishmonger. I left as soon as I passed my bike test. 

Granddad had stayed in London. We visited him occasionally at his flat in the cheap seats in Dulwich, a stones throw from the train station and the bright lights of the city centre. Why had we moved. He used to get the train to our local train station a mere thirty miles away. Either dad or my auntie would pick him up. I would always always have a batch of welsh cakes cooking on the electric griddle for his arrival. Enough to last his whole stay and be the preferred choice for suppa with a cuppa. Its quite ironic that thirty five years on he lives there and I am (nearly) on my way to London, all be it just for the spring.

As usual I digress. I love welsh cakes and appreciate the versatility of how they can be cooked. I haven't got a griddle but I have got a thick frying pan type insert from our Cobb BBQ. It cooks welsh cakes well on a hob, just about ok on the wood burner (you have to keep turning it to keep the heat even) and of course fantastically on the Cobb after the heat has died down a bit. Welsh cakes are best eaten straight from the griddle but it you can't manage the whole batch in one go, warming them directly on top of the stove and scoffing with a knob of butter on top is a good alternative. 

So how do you make them. Most patisserie recipes are quite complex and ingredient weights and methods are nothing short of alchemy, my style is more a considered approach but using recipes as a guide only so most of my sweet tooth cooking is quick and easy. For welsh cakes and most pastry type items I use a mini blender. The type that also has an attachment for blending soup or smoothies and sometimes a whisk. Ready?

8oz of self raising flour, 4oz of butter, stork or what ever you've got and 3oz of sugar (ideally caster sugar, but I use straight granulated) goes into the blender for a quick blitz to bread crumb texture. Pour this lot into a mixing bowl and add about 3oz of currants or sultanas. Make a bit of a well in the middle and crack an egg into it. Give the egg a bit of a mix (you can mix the egg in a separate bowl if you really like washing up) using the same fork start mixing the egg and flour mix together. It is going to be a bit dry so add the odd splash of milk to get to a pastry consistency. Don't over do the milk or you'll have a big sticky mess. If in doubt just use a little milk and give it a few minutes to absorb, if its still too dry add a little more. As long as its not a hot day you can roll out the pastry straight away, if it is warm cool it in the fridge first. Roll to about a quarter of an inch thick (they are better too thick than too thin) and cut circles with a cutter or glass arraying them overlapping on a plate or piece of baking parchment. 

A medium to low heat is needed for griddling the welsh cakes. Very lightly grease a non stick griddle and cook for a few minutes each side. The raising agent in the flour will puff them up slightly. Once the first side has browned to a light golden colour it is safe to carefully turn them with a palate knife. With the second side cooking you can gently push the cooked top, if there is still any movement between the two surfaces they are not quite done, but nearly there so get the kettle on!