Too Hot To Handle - Lemon Chilli Pickle
What to do with super hot chillies
I’ve been eating hot curries since I was a child, at first tortured by hunger when it tasted so good, but the heat was just too much for my juvenile taste sensibility. For children raised in curry eating cultures, think Sri Lankan and Indian and many more culinary traditions, children are slowly introduced to spice eating in what is called White curries in Sri Lanka. There is no heat in white curries, just a soothing aromatic introduction to curries with gradual addition of spices like fenugreek, cumin and fennel often in a tomato or coconut base, with lots of rice of course. Gradually as the child grows they are introduced to more stimulating spices until they are ready for chilli many years later. In the mean time, they will have had tiny tastes of something hot, not too much to handle, but a gentle introduction. I remember that day as I struggled to eat enough to satisfy my hunger whilst struggling with a whole mouth burn whilst sipping milk and wondering when it would ever stop. I’ve eaten a lot of chilies since, but all these decades later, I really don’t see the value of supremely hot chilies in cooking. So what to do with the really hot chillies my lovely neighbour keeps giving me?
I am hosting a Keralan Cooking Masterclass this weekend, where we will cook a potato mappas, Naadan Tomato curry, a Cashew chicken curry and a mackerel and coconut thoran. A well balanced menu to give my guests a selection of dishes they can prepare for a dinner gathering, or cooked separately for a family dinner. I always prepare a selection of dishes to accompany for the banquet everyone enjoys in the class. This weekend I will serve my version of a Sadya feast, which of course will include chutneys and pickle. It is too early in the season to be picking green mangoes, so I will substitute a pineapple in its stead, and I have a lime pickle nicely marinating in the fridge from last season, but I still wanted to make a fresh pickle to use some of these very hot chillies. Time will tell how they develop, but my thinking is I am creating a super punchy chillie lemon pickle which can be used in tiny amounts to add to many different dishes. Often the intensity of the heat of chillies mellows out in a pickle, put I am anticipating this batch will still be very hot on Saturday when I plan to use them in a prawn dry curry. They will also be great mixed with some oil to dress a bowl of curd, or added to a tempering oil to bring out the flavours of a dish. It would also be tasty in a coconut chutney, with coriander.
Apart from this lemon chillie pickle I am also marinating one of the split chillies and a few sliced garlic cloves in some olive oil. I will leave these out in the heat for a few days, then pop it in the fridge. The oil will be intensely hot and aromatic, but useful for a finishing drop on dishes like cold Korean noodles, gazpacho, garlic prawns, you get the idea.
Chillie Lemon Pickle
Ingredients
4 Lemons or Limes
4 Hot Chillies or not too hot
4 Tsp Sea salt
1 Tsp Black mustard seeds
1 Tsp Fenugreek
1/2 Tsp Cumin
2 Tbs Kashmiri Chillie - ground
For Tempering
50-100 mls Mustard seed oil
1 Tsp Black Mustard seeds
1/2 Tsp Asafoetida or Hing
Method
Sterilise the bottle you are going to use.
Wash the lemons or limes with detergent to remove dirt and any wax, and dry well. Then cut into segments, approximately 6-8-12 depending on the size of fruit.
Wash and dry your chillies, then cut in half.
Add the chillies and lemons to a bowl, then sprinkle in the salt, fenugreek, cumin and Kashmiri chillie. Combine well, then put your seasoned lemons and chillies into your prepared jar. Press down with a clean spoon, releasing the juices, then place out into the sun for a few days to marinate and ferment. Generally I would leave these out for 3 days in the sun, but it’s so hot here in Queensland right now, one day out on the hot paving around the pool has yielded a blend that is nicely maturing. I will leave it another day, then proceed to the tempering.
Bring the bottle in and prepare the tempering oil. Mustard seed oil is available from Asian grocery store, but if you can’t find it you could easily substitute with Olive, sunflower, avocado, coconut or even sesame oil.
Remove the contents of the bottle into a clean heatproof bowl.
Heat the oil in a small pan then add the asafoetida and remove from the heat, and carefully pour this tempering oil over the citrus blend. Combine well then turn it all back into the bottle ensuring everything is covered with oil.
Leave the bottle out of the fridge for a couple of more days, then pop it in the fridge and use to add a boost of heat and citrus flavour to you dishes.
I will come back to this post in a couple of days and update with details of how I have used this pickle to give you some more inspiration. In the meantime, I feel like a walk in the park with Bodhi to escape the news coming in of the US election results.
Post script
These chillie lime pickles were sensational dressing a bowl of fresh curd/yoghurt which went nicely with a Keralan fish curry I did for last weekend’s Keralan cooking class. I also added some of the oil to a pineapple and mint sambal, for the same Keralan meal. I made some samosas with left overs from the cooking class, and added some of the chillie oil to a sweet, sour and hot tamarind dipping sauce for the samosas, which was delicious. This pickle is intensely flavoured, so only a small amount is needed to pack a zingy flavour punch. I’ve plenty left in the fridge and it will keep for months, so give it a try.
