Thursday 22 April 2010

Fiery chilli!

A very kind and generous fellow gardener gave us some of his excess chillies. It was hard to decide what to do with them all. The choices, the choices! So, I froze a few, and dried a few. Just a handful each, to keep us going.

Another good handful was earmarked for preserving in oil. As I don't want our brains to be blown out (Okay, I'm a whimp. I like a good amount of heat, but not the kind that paralyses you for a few minutes after ingestion.), I slit them open and removed the seeds and membrane. Then sliced them in rings. All together about 1 1/2 cups of sliced chillies. Mix in 3 tbsp of salt.
Put a weight on top and leave for 24 hours.

Then drain off the liquid and dry the chillies as much as possible.
Put them in a sterilized jar, press down, then top with oil. Make sure the chillies are all well covered. That's it! You can use the oil and the sliced chillies. Keeps for a very long time.

4 comments:

Matron said...

I always have too many chillis! what a great thing to do with them!

Anonymous said...

Great idea - must get around do doing this, mine are stil drying.

Mickle in NZ said...

And they've kept their glorious colour! Happy chilli and chilli oil times in a few months, when we'll all need a burst of past summer heat.

Veggie Gnome said...

Olive oil! :)