Ordinal M.

A lot of people that I follow on Dreamwidth - which is not many in the first place - seem to post recipes. Here is a recipe that I have followed, to make some chilli sauce, due to my having purchased far too many chillies.

No, really. Far too many. Take a double handful of evilly strong green chillies and put it in a plastic bag. Then take another double handful and put it in the bag. Then imagine you get a bit bored of putting chillies in a bag, but you might as well put, say, half a dozen more in. That’s about as many as I had.

I put about two thirds of them into a different plastic bag, which I put into another different plastic bag, and put them in the freezer, because I had no idea what to do with all of them and they would go off before I worked it out. Then I put maybe half a dozen into a pasta sauce thing I was cooking with meatballs. However, that left maybe 15-20 of them, so. Ingredients:

• 15-20 evil green chillies, topped and tailed.
• About a cup of distilled vinegar. I wouldn’t bother using nice vinegar.
• A tin of tomatoes - decent quality tinned tomatoes are generally nicer and less watery.
• Salt. Oh, what, about two or three seconds’ shaking.
• Sugar, perhaps three or four teaspoons.
• Four medium cloves of garlic.
• A chunk of chopped ginger about the size of a ping-pong ball after you’ve removed the skin.
• A metric glug of olive oil
• Mint. This is important. Dried is fine. A pinch or so, not too much; better to put less in now and add some later than to use excessive mint.

Put all of the above into a blender, and whizz quite hard until it’s pretty liquid. You can then taste it. It will be really, really strong, so don’t do more than lick a teaspoon. Pour the evil mixture into a saucepan and simmer it for a while, tasting to see whether it needs more seasoning. After that, transfer it into whatever containers are available.

This is “kebab-style” chilli sauce, quite thick and tomato-y, and goes well with eggs or meat. I’m quite fond of it with poached eggs on toast of a morning.

bay leaves

An indigestible dried garnish, to be added to a stew or casserole to entertain diners by forcing them to find a way to remove the leaves from their mouths in a decorous manner. Do not affect the taste of a dish in any way.