Cool way to make chilli sauce – recipe

Other than a chilli popper, or a sweet chilli sauce, that massively overrated feature of too many restaurant menus, the humble chilli is almost always used the way garlic is " to enhance or spike something else, much in the way we use oregano, parsley or thyme.

Other than a chilli popper, or a sweet chilli sauce, that massively overrated feature of too many restaurant menus, the humble chilli is almost always used the way garlic is " to enhance or spike something else, much in the way we use oregano, parsley or thyme.

Published Apr 15, 2015

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Cradock – Ain’t no sunshine when they’re gone.

They’re so cool, they’re hot. And the hotter they are, the cooler they are. They’re the paradox of the vegetable world, or are they the conundrum of the fruit galaxy?

When is a paradox a conundrum, or is a conundrum always a paradox?

A paradox is a statement or proposition that seems to contradict itself and yet which could be true. So calling a chilli cool seems to be contradictory, yet we know it isn’t, because almost any really cool dude will eat a chilli and be out, loud and proud about it. And the hotter the better.

A conundrum is a riddle to which the answer is a play on words. Can something hot be cool? Sure – the hotter they are, the cooler they are.

The paradoxical conundrum that is the chilli is the strangest of vegetables because it is rarely eaten as an ingredient in its own right. Whether it is a fruit or a vegetable (and if a tomato is a fruit surely a chilli can be so labelled too?), the chilli is better classified as a herb or an aromatic.

Onions and garlic and for that matter leeks can sympathise with their bright red cousin, for they too are often treated as aromatics, used to flavour something else rather than being the hero of the dish.

The onion gets a rare outing as a feature in its own right, in a French onion soup, which to me is one of the great dishes of the world, or in our neck of the woods in slaphaksteentjies, that sweetly wonderful delight of the boere kitchen.

Other than a chilli popper, or a sweet chilli sauce, that massively overrated feature of too many restaurant menus, the humble chilli is almost always used the way garlic is – to enhance or spike something else, much in the way that we use oregano, parsley or thyme.

I hear the sound of chilliheads bristling. Would that be in response to my outrageous dissing of the common sweet chilli sauce?

Ah yes, the sweet chilli sauce. Chillies, sugar, vinegar, water, boil, reduce. Complex, that.

Then slop it on anything you like, fish, chicken, steak, pizza, a sandwich. No wonder they put it in bottles and sell it on supermarket shelves alongside the ketchup and the Worcestershire sauce.

Okay, sure, there are good ones and so-so ones, mostly the latter.

A good Thai chilli sauce is a far superior thing to many of those we overpay for at the local shops.

And a good chef or home cook will use garlic and the odd spice – cumin, maybe, or smoked Spanish paprika – to give it an interesting edge and set it apart from the riff-raff. There you go, the chilli sauce – the riff raff of the contemporary kitchen. Now there’s something to bristle about.

So this week’s column ends up, by default, being about a recipe intended to produce a better chilli sauce.

Not peri-peri. Not “sweet chilli sauce”. Rather, a sauce that starts in the oven, moves to the stove top and ends up in the food processor.

A sauce with some sweetness, but in which the sweetness does not make you think some oke spilled golden syrup into the chilli sauce and thought, “Whoah, good idea, dude”. In his best Keanu Reeves voice.

The column, in case you’re wondering (I know I was) was to have been simply about chillies, generically, and where they fit in the kitchen and in society.

Or maybe in music.

But that’s the joy of writing, sometimes it takes you where you had no idea you were going, as if you’ve boarded the wrong bus or train and think, what the hell, let’s just go with it.

So here’s another way to approach the making of a chilli sauce – treat it as you would any dish worth making, by building some flavour right from the off, and developing it from there.

To that end, there’s nothing like a good roasting, as Justin Bieber would be the first to acknowledge. (If you haven’t seen his Comedy Central roasting, seriously, get it and be amazed. Brilliantly risque, if cruel, television with a surprisingly sweet ending.)

Chilli sauce

3 large, fat, very ripe tomatoes

2 ripe red bell peppers

3 to 5 red chillies, or more if you like

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil, the classier the better

1 cup water

1 cup white wine vinegar

1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika

1 tsp ground cumin

1 Tbs lemon juice

1 Tbs sugar

Set the oven heat nice and high. Oil an oven tray and coat the tomatoes, peppers and chillies in it, and the (peeled) onion and garlic. Place them all on the tray and roast in the oven until everything is thoroughly soft.

Put everything, skin, seeds and all (you’re looking for flavour and texture in this sauce) in a pot big enough to hold them, add the vinegar, water, spices, lemon juice and sugar, stir and bring to a boil.

Reduce to a low simmer and, with a lid on so that you don’t lose any of the liquid, let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Stir every now and then so that it doesn’t catch.

Cool to room temperature, then blend in a food processor until it’s as smooth as you like it.

Slosh on anything you like. It’ll add some sunshine to almost anything.

Even a pizza.

Weekend Argus

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