Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff

Hooroo

Out of curiosity, why dried thyme? (I only ask as I have alot of it growing round the place)

taniwharugby

how much does that make DM?
 
Sounds great!

dogmeat

Hooroo
 
Variety of reasons - most people don't have a lot of thyme growing. You'd need 8 tsps. of fresh. Its a pain in the arse picking 8 tsps. of fresh time coz you def don't want the stalks. You tend to add fresh thyme at the end of a dish because too much cooking will destroy the flavonoids. But if you've got fresh thyme and want to use it then do just add it towards the end of the process. Its definitely a superior flavour as with all things fresh.
 
OK another easy as recipe for adding instant heat to a sauce or as a rub.
 
1 red capsicum
50 grams dried ancho chillis (I just use a handful and adjust to taste later)
50 grams dried chipotle chillis
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
1 teaspoon seasalt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
 
Boil some water - cut the stems off chillis and remove seeds if you're a wuss. Rehydrate the dried chillis in water for about 30 mins until soft. Cut into 1/4 cm cubes
 
Roast the capsicum on the bbq or over gas flame or in oven until really black. Place in plastic bag and leave for 10 mins. Then peel skin remove stem and seeds and cut into 1 cm cubes
toast the spices in a pan until fragrant and then grind in a pestle to a powder. Grind garlic and salt to paste 
Blitz everything in processor. Add more oil if too dry for your liking. Adjust seasoning to taste
 
Use according to how hot it is to your personal taste. As a rub of to give a kick to a sauce. It'll make a couple of cups. Keep in fridge.
 
TR - It'll make about 250 mls of tom sce

Hooroo

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="dogmeat" data-cid="551063" data-time="1452113483">
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Hooroo
 
Variety of reasons - most people don't have a lot of thyme growing. You'd need 8 tsps. of fresh. Its a pain in the arse picking 8 tsps. of fresh time coz you def don't want the stalks. You tend to add fresh thyme at the end of a dish because too much cooking will destroy the flavonoids. But if you've got fresh thyme and want to use it then do just add it towards the end of the process. Its definitely a superior flavour as with all things fresh.
 
OK another easy as recipe for adding instant heat to a sauce or as a rub.
 
1 red capsicum
50 grams dried ancho chillis (I just use a handful and adjust to taste later)
50 grams dried chipotle chillis
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
1 teaspoon seasalt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
 
Boil some water - cut the stems off chillis and remove seeds if you're a wuss. Rehydrate the dried chillis in water for about 30 mins until soft. Cut into 1/4 cm cubes
 
Roast the capsicum on the bbq or over gas flame or in oven until really black. Place in plastic bag and leave for 10 mins. Then peel skin remove stem and seeds and cut into 1 cm cubes
toast the spices in a pan until fragrant and then grind in a pestle to a powder. Grind garlic and salt to paste 
Blitz everything in processor. Add more oil if too dry for your liking. Adjust seasoning to taste
 
Use according to how hot it is to your personal taste. As a rub of to give a kick to a sauce.
 
TR - It'll make about 250 mls
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</blockquote>
Just Yum!!!
 
I'm going to make that. We only have fresh chillis at the moment but I guess I can also roast them over the bbq too.
 
That rub will be on my next bbq's chicken

taniwharugby

drying chillis, tomatoes etc, how do you guys do it?
 
I tried and failed miserably a few years back.

Hooroo

For my chillis, I just put them on a rack inside and the dried out enough that I could store them in a jar. Lasted nearly 11 months before I got through them.
 
Chillis are amazing. When I first met true-love, she could barely tolerate a capsicum.... Now she asks for more heat. Nearly every time I under do it worried it will be too much. They other day, she out tolerated me with a spicy we number.
 
Amazing how the tolerance builds if you do it slowly. Then it becomes an addiction! and we all love an addiction!

dogmeat

Thin chillis will dry on a window sill, but with toms and chillis I use an oven 
 
I slice the toms and season Chillis cut in half - roast overnight in a low oven (80 degrees C) with door slightly open. You want to dry them not cook them.
 
Same Hooroo with the smokinmg of the chillis. I have a cold smoker so its easy but you need to smoke over a low heat as low as you can manage

Hooroo

What cold smoker do you have and do you recommend it? I don't have a cold smoker or a hot one now we sold the bach

dogmeat

I got UFO cold smoker at Taste Akl <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://ufo.abcforbusiness.co.nz/'>http://ufo.abcforbusiness.co.nz/</a> 
I fucking love chilli - anything spicy 
I'm sure I have bored you all with this story before, but I have friends who travel (a lot) and they had a crusade to come back with a chilli sauce that was too hot for me. 
Every year they'd bring something back from Jamaica or the States or wherever and I would take a spoon full and invariably say it's nice but it's not that hot. 
Until they brought this bad boy back<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71TNZ5V-lmL.SY355.jpg" alt="71TNZ5V-lmL.SY355.jpg">
 
I should have read the label. If I had I would have seen that this (was then) the hottest non-industrial chilli sauce in the world at 1.5 million scoville's
 
Put that into context - the hottest jalapeno is 8,000 scovilles, a habanero is 350,000 and pepper spray is 2 mill.
 
The label said to add it 1 drop at a time.
 
I had a teaspoon. They won.
 
the effect was instantaneous. My eyes and nose ran, all moisture disappeared from my mouth, I started coughing and my guts cramped. My lips and tongue were off the scale in terms of pain. I settled down after about 5 minutes - until the next day.......
 
I still use it to add instant heat to a dish but maybe 3 teaspoons in a whole pot of food. Da Bomb defeated me.
 
there are videos on You Tube of guys trying it, but I can't post them as it is too painful a reminder :)

Godder

If there's a lesson in that, it's that in the battle of man vs Mother Nature, Mother Nature always wins...

NTA

Mad fucking Scientists always win.
 
Mmmmm... Guatemalan Insanity Pepper...
 
<img src="http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/0/09/Pepper.jpg" alt="Pepper.jpg">

MN5

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="551249" data-time="1452143629">Mad fucking Scientists always win. 
 
Mmmmm... Guatemalan Insanity Pepper... 
 <img src="http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/0/09/Pepper.jpg" alt="Pepper.jpg"></blockquote>
 
Ha, I remember that episode with Johnny Cash as the voice of the talking dog. Brilliantly twisted.

jegga

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MN5" data-cid="551386" data-time="1452205878">
Ha, I remember that episode with Johnny Cash as the voice of the talking dog. Brilliantly twisted.</blockquote>
 
That's probably one of my favourite episodes , Cash was a coyote wasn't he?

Hooroo

Crucial! (or anyone) Any fabulous Plum Sauce recipes? I am going to harvest the tree tonight

taniwharugby

yeah I'd be keen on a plum sauce recipe, although my lone tree is looking fairly sparse (only in it's 2nd season of fruiting so I am pretty stoked with it) it is a Billington Plum.
 
With your dried tomatoes, how do you store them?

Hooroo

Me? I never store dried tomatoes. Dried chillies I just store in a jar

Crucial

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Hooroo" data-cid="551719" data-time="1452458601">
<div>
Crucial! (or anyone) Any fabulous Plum Sauce recipes? I am going to harvest the tree tonight
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</blockquote>
 
I'll get out my notebook tonight and post up.
 
If your plums are ripe and full of natural sugars, I also have a recipe I use for tamirillos which makes a kind of fruit based chilli jam. I use my smoked jalapenos in it and it is damn tasty with meats and cheeses.
 
As for keeping your tomatoes, I tend to only partly dry them (in a low oven) to concentrate the flavours then bag them and freeze them. Just get them out when you need them for pasta etc. I'm not big on strong sundried tomato flavour in salads and stuff but doing it this way works well for cooked dishes during the rest of the year.
 
I now have my new toy of a vacuum sealer so will be able to store them better as well.
 
The smoked chillis, I finish them off in the oven them keep them in a jar with a couple of those silica sachets you get among packaging. Helps keep them dry.

taniwharugby

I tried some of my cherry tomato's I dried yesterday on home made pizza, they were pretty good, could probably add some chilli powder or something to them for a bit more punch.

Crucial

Smoked Chilli Tomato Sauce 
Makes about 1 litre
1.5kg tomatoes (skinned) 
450g finely chopped onion 
400ml malt vinegar 
200g soft brown sugar 
3 tbsp salt 
Smoked chillis (you need to judge this based on what they are like. Late season ones that have developed more heat/seed will be much hotter. Try 2. You can always boost later.) 
2 tbsps ground allspice 
4 ground cloves 1tbsp worcestershire sauce
Slowly cook off onions with a little oil to develop a bit of colour then add a cup or so of tomatoes and cook down. You are looking to slightly caramelise this as a base. 
Add everything else and simmer for around 2 hours, lid on to start, but then remove lid so that sauce reduces to around a litre. 
Whiz it all up with a blender and check for consistency/ flavour. You can reduce further to concentrate flavour if needed or if you like it as is even add about a tbsp of arrowroot (mixed with same quantity of soy sauce) as a thickener.

Hooroo

A basic learning needed please.
 
I have done so before but for some reason I struggle to time the boiling of the tomatoes before skinning them. Then I end up with a bit too much tomatoe waste
 
Tips for skinning tomatoes please.

The Silver Fern

Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff