Throw-down - Hot and Spicy Feature

Sunday 3rd July was the first ever throw down competition for yours truly, a competition organized by a large online chilehead community, and basically conducted over the Internet.
It's a lot of fun. There are rules to establish the authenticity of all entries, a specified cooking 'theme' and various other requirements.
This is a monthly event, and the theme for July was 'Toast'. So it was quite a loose theme, opening up all manner of culinary possibilities. Of course the dish needed to be hot and spicy!, with liberal use of chile peppers.
The rules stipulated that a full list of ingredients be provided with each entry, along with a detailed cooking method. I wont post that here, just a few pics of the work in progress and my finished entry. Enjoy!

Best Ever Chicken Curry Recipe

Best ever chicken curry - serves 4 fatties

There's a bit of faffing around involved in this, but it's worth it.

Boil a whole large chopped onion with 6 cloves of fresh garlic and teasp fresh chopped ginger in two pints of water for 10 minutes. Remove from water with slotted spoon retaining water - puree.

Boil 4 large chopped carrots and a whole chopped fennel in the onion water for 10 minutes - puree with some of water and add 1 cup of cream 'till a smooth paste.

Retain remaining water in pan.

Melt i tsp ghee in big frying pan, add the pureed onion/garlic/ginger mix and add -
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp corriander
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp methi seed (optional)
1/2 tsp fenugreek leaves (optional)
2 bayleaves
1 star anise (optional)

Saute the above until onion starts to darken a little, about 5 mins - remove star anise.
Add pureed carrots to the above and saute - season with salt/pepper, add more garam masala to taste.

add fresh chilies or crushed red chili to desired heat level
add 1 cup cilantro chopped
add half pack spinach
cook for 30 minutes

Brown diced chicken breasts - add to mix and cook for 30 mins. Add more pan water to desired consistency if required.
Serve with basmati rice, nan bread and garnish with cilantro

Great Stuffed Thai Chicken Recipe

This feeds three/four people

The sauce
Take a  squash, dice it into half inch cubes, then steam it until the cubes still have a bit of texture, not crunchy.

Take a whole leek, a whole fennel, full habanero with seeds, dice and saute with a 4 cloves crushed garlic. Saute in 2 tsp butter and 2 tsp olive oil. Add 1 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp fresh diced ginger, 1/2 cup raw spinach. Cook for 10 mins. Add the cooked squash and 2 cups of the squash pan water, cook/reduce until everything is soft. Put the mix into a blender and puree. Add 1 cup of milk to blender and puree.


The stuffing

two cups of chopped fresh spinach
one teaspoon fresh minced ginger
one tsp garlic
1/2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup of Fete cheese
Mix all the above up

Take 2/3 chicken breasts and slit for stuffing. Cram in the stuffing till overflowing

Pan fry and brown the chicken both sides, 5 minutes.

Put chicken in a casserole dish and add the sauce. Sauce shouldn't cover over the top of the chicken. Bake on 375 for 30 minutes until chicken cooked.

Serve with wild rice, asparagus or whatever takes yer fancy.

A simple but effective Hot Sauce recipe.

With all the bottled stuff around we often forget what real peppers taste like. Remember that most of the bottled sauces are predominantly vinegar, with other flavors, colors and 'enhancements' to disguise the true flavors of our beloved pepper.

So why not make your own?

Here is a very versatile recipe that's quick and easy to make. You are going to make a hot pepper 'base', after which you can quickly create a wonderful sauce along with a bottled sauce for sprinkling as you need.

This recipe can be made to any heat level that you desire, so pick your peppers according to personal taste. You will be adding other ingredients to this so your pepper choices should be a little on the Hot side, to counter the 'diluting' affect of the additional ingredients.
I would recommend that you use 3 Poblano's, 6 habenero's, 4 jalepeno's, and one mild red pepper for flavor. This will give you an excellent first impression of heat, with a slow build up of heat intensity and a nice linger for a half hour or so. If it's too hot, you can always add more tomato, onion and mild red pepper to cut the heat.

This is simple to make, don't worry about any fancy chopping technique since everything is going in the blender after it's cooked.

Chop the above peppers, including seeds and membranes from the hot peppers (not the mild red one) and place them in a large hot skillet with a tsp of olive oil. Keep stirring. If you want to fuss and remove the skins from the Poblano and mild red pepper, you can, but I don't.
Add a small chopped red onion, three cloves of crushed fresh garlic, 2 tsp sea or kosher salt, tsp of ground cayenne, tsp of fresh ground black pepper, 2 tsp of course grain mustard.
Cook for around 15 minutes until the peppers are soft and the onion is lightly browned. Don't burn since the garlic will kill the flavor if you burn it.
Add a large can of tomato puree or tomato sauce. Add 4tsp of honey and 1 tsp of maple syrup. Let this cook down a little, another 15 minutes.
Taste and add more salt if needed. If it's way too hot you can add a little more tomato sauce.
Pour the whole mixture into the blender and puree.
At this point it will be quite a thick mixture and you have your base. I usually add this base straight into whatever meat I'm cooking without diluting it further. So if you're cooking chicken, pan fry it or whatever, then add the pepper base and cook until ready to serve. But if it's too hot, you can add more tomato puree or even red wine to cut the heat. Red wine works nicely, just remember to reduce it down to cook-off the alcohol. I've even added a bottle of good stout beer to make a nice dark, rich pepper sauce.
Now with whatever is left from your pepper base, you can bottle it. Add a little more salt and equal parts of apple cider vinegar to your base. So if you have a cup of pepper base add a cup of apple cider vinegar. Shake well and bottle. Keep in the fridge for at least a couple weeks, even longer. Shake well before use. You can use this liberally on just about anything, it won't be too hot given the added vinegar.

That's it!

The taste of real fresh peppers, cooking time about 30 minutes.

C