Tabasco Sauce

The last of our chillies.

We grow Chillies every year on our deck, they just seem to thrive. I was always surprised how productive the bush always seems to be, and how hot the resulting chillies are. Then I read somewhere that to grow hotter chillies only water once a week . . . I thought I was just being lazy!

This year because we were going away on holiday I wanted to pick them all before we left and rather than just popping them in the freezer I thought some homemade tabasco sauce was in order. It is very simple. And not that authentic. I mean I don't have an oak barrel and three years, let alone the right type of chilli, so perhaps this should be amended to chilli sauce?

Beware the noxious gas release while the sauce is simmering - keep the extractor fan on and a window open!

Chilli Sauce
Makes approximately 1 cup of sauce

250g fresh destalked chillies, chopped roughly
1 cup cider or wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of salt

Mix all the ingredients in a pot and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool. Puree and mature the thick paste in the fridge for a month in a glass jar. Sieve into a sterilised bottle.

corn·ed corn chow·der

Hot and steamy, but nothing to focus on . . .

When I made corned beef and its delicious silky sauce there was a fair bit of cooking liquor left, and it was too good for this frugally amused gastronome to throw away. The liquor in which the modern corned beef has been cooked is not as overly salty as that your Mother or Grandmother would have known, thus opening rafts of possible future uses. On tasting the liquor before making the mustard sauce, I immediately saw visions of a damn tasty soup. At the time I thought lentil, but as it transpired, the soup was to be corn chowder. And isn't that so fitting, a corn chowder made with corned beef liquor?

Corned Corn Chowder
Serves 4

1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
6 cups of liquor from cooking corned beef, or chicken stock
500g frozen corn kernels
salt
white pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until soft. Add the potato and stir to coat in the oily onion mixture. Add the stock and corn and simmer until the potato is soft, approximately 15 minutes. Puree with a hand held blender or similar and season with a little salt and white pepper. Reheat to serve piping hot.