Dan May - Red Hot Sauce Book

Senior Designer Barbara Zuiga

Commissioning Editor Cline Hughes

Production Controller Gary Hayes

Art Director Leslie Harrington

Editorial Director Julia Charles

Food Stylist Lizzie Harris

Prop Stylist Risn Nield

Indexer Hilary Bird

First published in 2013 as

The Red Hot Chilli (Chile) Sauce Book

This revised edition published in 2022 by

Ryland Peters & Small

2021 Jockeys Fields

London WC1R 4BW

and

341 E 116th St

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text Dan May 2013, 2022

Design and photographs Ryland Peters & Small 2013, 2022

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-78879-440-4

eISBN: 978-1-78879-464-0

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Printed in China

NOTES

The recipes in this book are given in both metric and imperial measurements. However, the spellings are primarily British and this includes all terminology relating to chilli peppers. British chilli and chillies are used where Americans would use chile, chili and chiles.

All spoon measurements are level unless otherwise specified.

All herbs are fresh unless otherwise specified.

All eggs are medium (UK) or large (US) unless otherwise specified. Uncooked or partially cooked eggs should not be served to the very young, the very old, those with compromised immune systems, or to pregnant women.

When a recipe calls for the grated zest of citrus fruit, buy unwaxed fruit and wash well before use. If you can only find treated fruit, scrub well in warm soapy water and rinse before using.

Ovens should be preheated to the specified temperature. Recipes in this book were tested using a regular oven. If using a fan/convection oven, follow the manufacturers instructions for adjusting temperatures.

Sterilize preserving jars before use. Wash them in hot, soapy water and rinse in boiling water. Place in a large saucepan and then cover with hot water. With the lid on, bring the water to the boil and continue boiling for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, then leave the jars in the hot water until just before they are to be filled. Invert the jars onto clean kitchen paper to dry. Sterilize the lids for 5 minutes, by boiling, or according to the manufacturers instructions. Jars should be filled and sealed while they are still hot.

contents

Introduction

When I wrote The Red Hot Chilli Cookbook it gave me the wonderful opportunity to share some of the things I have always loved to cook. Their roots were in places I had visited and things I had tasted but their unifying thread was that they had been gathered almost by chance over many years and of course contained lots of chilli!

This book was slightly different; many of the recipes were ones I have, in principle, known for years and have loved to make but as I began to look at the ingredients and the way people cooked around the world I realized that each cultures approach to their food needed to be considered before I could really understand the processes and skills that make each recipe special. The traditional techniques that can so often be replaced with modern kitchen conveniences had genuine value in the flavour and consistency of the finished paste or sauce. Each one is special because it represents a particular flavour combination or way of doing things that is often unique to a small geographic area. Although this book is undoubtedly about chillies and the love of chillies it is also about cooking, eating and sharing and how universally important these things are no matter where you happen to live.

The inescapable fact is that food is key to our existence. The only thing we require with more regularity if we want to stay alive is water; and yet we have continued to erode its importance with our constant scrabbling to find some way of producing it more cheaply, more quickly or more conveniently as though our basic human requirement was in reality an inconvenience. I believe that something so vital and with the potential to provide so much pleasure should be afforded the time and attention befitting its role in our lives. If we look out into the wider world we see culture after culture where food is respected and dishes are made by tried and tested methods that show an understanding of the ingredients. This understanding combined with the patience required to make sometimes complex pastes and sauces illustrates the importance of food and its preparation in the regions in this book.

People often associate the decline in an interest in real food and an increasing love of heavily processed food with increasing wealth; this in itself seems weird but to a degree the figures back this up. We do seem to be exceptional in the way we insist that our food should be as cheap as possible, no matter what the real cost.

With the exception of the USA, people in the UK spend less as a percentage of their income (less than 8%) on food than any other comparable country in the world. If we make a direct comparison with average expenditure across other European countries we find that the UK only spends 53% or just over half the amount our European counterparts regularly spend per person on food. It is a simple fact that (for example) Indonesia which spends 43% of annual income on food has to do so because average incomes are considerably lower, but given the European example it is clear that some countries just place a higher value on the quality and freshness of their food and on paying the producers a fair price to make it for them! They also like to have a say in the way it is delivered to them weekly food markets, butchers, online, and also via the supermarket. Food undoubtedly becomes cheaper if it is heavily processed (thus has a longer shelf life), is sourced on a huge scale and sold through a few channels. But this model does little for maintaining real choice, quality and an understanding of the food we are eating. In an effort to feed the profits of the delivery channel everything else involved suffers and inevitably corners are cut. In the population as a whole it inexorably leads to less fresh food, less cooking from scratch and even more worryingly, fewer of the skills required to do this being passed to the next generation; and this doesnt even begin to address the inherent health issues.

By the time I was 10, against my better judgement, I could have a pretty good stab at spaghetti Bolognese, a roast dinner or a decent curry and I was not exceptional. I recently carried out an ad-hoc survey with a group of my 10-year-old sons friends and found not a single one could cook any of these dishes or even similar, and more than half of them had never even helped to make a single meal they had eaten. To me, cooking is a life skill; it enables you to look after yourself. It is inconceivable to imagine this as less important than, for example, the ability to create a PowerPoint presentation, use social media, or drive.