Keyword: easy, essentials, spicy, store cupboard essential
Prep Time: 8 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 1 hourhour
Author: The Wild Epicurean
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Ingredients
300gfresh red chillies finely chopped and de-seeded if you want a milder smoother sauce - I used the cayenne varitiety of chilli together with a few banana chilli peppers but use whatever is available and is the right level of spice for you
200gapples - the ideal is half sweet and half cooking peeled, cored and chopped
300gchopped red onions
5clovesgarlic - grated or sliced
5cmpiece of ginger finely sliced(optional)
1tspgreen peppercorns
1bay leaf
2tspmustard seeds
360mldistilled white vinegar - minimum 5° acidity
1½tspsalt
Instructions
Sterilise the jars or bottles.
Gently soften the chillies and onions in about quarter of of the vinegar together with the peppercorns, garlic, ginger and mustard seeds.
Add the apples and salt and the rest of the vinegar. Heat very gently, stirring until the mixture boils.
Turn down the heat and simmer for approximately 45 minutes, adding more vinegar if it becomes too dry before the vegetables have had a chance to soften. You can then gently reduce it a little until the sauce has slightly thickened but is still saucy. Add more or less vinegar depending on how pourable you want it to be.
Whizz the sauce with a handheld mixer or in a food processor and then immediately press the mixture through a sieve - fine enough to stop all the bits but also big enough to extract the sauce. Pack immediately into your sterilised jars while still hot. See notes for tips.
Notes
You don't have to whizz, as it will intensify the sauce; however, it will also make it easier to pass through the sieve. Make sure the blade is sterilised.I prefer to use lots of small jars because they will only keep a few weeks in the fridge once opened.As with all bottling using vinegar, do not use metallic tops that have not been coated. It would be best if you sterilised both the lid and the jar. The sauce should be bottled immediately while still hot into hot jars. After sealing the lid, you should then invert the jar to heat the air gap, which will help the sauce to keep.Ideally, store the sauce in a cool dark place, for a couple of weeks before using, to help the flavours develop.Adapted from a wonderfully practical book by Joan Wilson, E 1996, Perfect Preserves, Penguin Group, England.