What to do with Habanero Chillis - Some recipies

[amsm]

As mentioned in my post up there ^^ I have had a minor glut of Habaneros this year and never having grown or tried them before, I was wondering what I could do with them. So I thought I might start a thread and add my successes and failures as I work my way through them.

This was my first experiment, which worked, and resulted in a nice spicy dish that had a suitable amount of burn, but was acceptable to all the family.


First off is a kind of Pasta Marinara type dish, made up as I went along and was decided on at the last minute as I walked past the Mussel Man at the local Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized Habanero, seeds removed and chopped fine
• Two cans of Italian smashed tomatoes, but could use fresh
• Small supermarket container of pitted Kalamata olives (I used the ones in brine, but any would do)
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 big cloves of garlic smashed and chopped
• 3 carrots chopped small
• 3 sticks of celery chopped small
• coupla fresh bayleaves, few lumps off the thyme and oregano plants
• bit of olive oil
• 1kg fresh, live, in-the-shell mussels
• Favourite pasta (I used Fusilli because I had some, but whatever floats your boat) and favourite Parmesan/Pecorino
• Optional Fresh Basil or Parsley, finely chopped

Method:

• Fry the onions in olive oil until soft, then add the garlic
• After a few minutes, add the celery and the Habanero and gently soften for a while.
• Add the tomatoes, herbs, olives and carrots and allow to simmer.
• While that simmers, de-beard and wash the mussels, discarding any that are broken, or open ones that don't respond to a sharp flick on the shell (if they are open, but shut when you give them a good sharp flick, they are fine, but as with most shellfish, "if in doubt, chuck it out")
• After the sauce has simmered long enough for it to reduce a bit and for the flavours to marry and the carrots to soften, put on the water for the pasta.
• When the water boils, put in your pasta and then a few minutes later put the mussels into the pot with the sauce. Depending on which pasta you're using and how many mussels you have, the mussels should be cooked at pretty much the same time, but if the mussels look like they will be cooked first, you can always take the sauce off the heat, which will slow them down.
• Once the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain and place into bowls.
• We fished the mussels out and put them on top of the pasta and then dolloped sauce over, but that's only because the kids wanted to make sure they weren't ripped off in the mussel count !
• At this point, if your're using the Basil or Parsley, you can sprinkle and serve

You could use whatever seafood you wanted and probably even chicken, with suitable adjustments to cooking times and schedules. We sometimes use a similar sauce without the Basil and Parsley, but with a couple of orange or lemon slices, some saffron, cinnamon and some cloves and over rice rather than pasta for a bit more of a Spanish feel.

Anyway, the Habanero really added something, not just heat.

Thankfully the Mussel-Man is at the market every Saturday, so we'll be doing this again!

No photos, sorry..too hungry

[Lespom]

Originally Posted by amsm

Anyway, the Habanero really added something, not just heat.

Where do we add it

[amsm]

Originally Posted by Lespom

Where do we add it

You know, you're 100% correct...I forgot the whole reason for the recipe

...corrected now..thanks

[DUO]

heres what i do with my naga's... its fkn phenomenal !!!! i have this on everything!


Spicy tomato Relish

2kg Ripe tomatoes
3/4 kg white onions
1/2 cup salt
1/2 kg sugar
2 tablespoons mustard powder
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
750ml vinegar (i used apple cider, but white is fine)
1 tablespoon cornflour
Chillies to taste - i use a dozen nagas a time ( you loose heat during the process)

Steps:

1). boil a large pot of water (about 1/2 full). Once boiled turn off
2). Peel and chop all the onions. I used a food processor (saves the eyes). set aside
3). cut an 'X' into the base of each tomato and place into the hot water. The idea is to break the skin by cutting an X, and the hot water wrinkles the skin making it easy to peel the tomatoes.
4). once the tomatoes skins have wrinkled in the water. take them out. Peel them. Top them. Cut into quarters and give a light squeeze to remove the liquid
5). combine the chopped tomatoes, onions and all the salt into a tray and leave overnight. The salt will extract alot of the liquid
6). pour off as much of the liquid as possible (this gets rid of most of the salt too by the way)
7). place mix into a large pot. Add vinegar and sugar, chillies, spices.
8). bring to the boil and cook for 1 - 1.5 hours, untill mix is reduced almost by half. Stiring alot and skim off the scum that appears (make sure to open the windows lol)
9). At this point i used a potato masher to break up the large chunks of tomatoes. Its still nice and chunky though.
10). take a little of the Relish liquid and combine with the cornflour in a small bowl or cup. Remove all the lumps and mix to a nice paste. Add this to the main pot to thicken it.
11). cook for a further 5 min. remove from heat and bottle into sterilised jars
12). place sealed jars into a water bath (pot with water filled to just under the jars top) and boil for 30min. This makes a nice seal and should keep em fresh for Ages

[MR CHILLED]

I'd love more ideas for their use.....I keep getting given home grown chilli's by a friend and have no real use for them. So open to ideas!

[tunagirll]

Lots and lots of curry

[amsm]

Originally Posted by tunagirll

Lots and lots of curry

Not with Habaneros..not the right flavour.

[HUMMER]

http://www.beerfordinner.com/2007/04...-con-carne.php

Bob’s Chili Con Carne

Bob’s Chili Con Carne with Habanero and Beans
version 10

Makes around six bowls of chili.

In addition to the usual kitchen hardware you will need:

a crockpot, slow cooker or simmering element. A regular stove boiler element is generally too hot.

You will need the following ingredients:

800 mg of lean (but not extra lean) ground beef (about 28 ounces)
800 ml of crushed tomatoes (about 28 fl oz.)
540 ml tin of mixed beans (20 fl oz.) If you are in Canada, you won’t go wrong with the Unico version of this. In a pinch, a tin of kidney beans will do
1 medium sized onion (I like red, but any onion will do)
3 tbsp of bacon fat recovered from salt-reduced bacon
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp garlic powder (or half a bulb of very finely chopped garlic)
3 tbsp of New Mexican chilli powder (regular American style works OK too)
1 tbsp (or so) of dry oregano. I’ve never measured out oregano in my life, prefering instead to throw it in by the pinch. But this is around the amount I’m using
1 tsp cayenne powder
1/2 tsp ground pepper. About eight full grinds of the pepper mill ought to do it
2 big habanero peppers. Scotch bonnets can be used instead for their heat, but won’t impart the flavour we’re after.
125 ml of water (about 1/2 of a cup)


Now I know what you are thinking, “¿dos habaneros? ¿está él loco?“* Keep reading and you’ll find out how we control the heat from the habanero.

Traditional chili recipes call for suet, but the bacon fat adds a most interesting flavour. Besides, you’ll get to eat a bunch of bacon sometime before this — ain’t nothing wrong with that! Bacon fat will keep for months in the fridge, so don’t feel as if you have to cook it the night before. The easiest way to get it is to cook a quarter kilo of bacon in a frypan until it is brown, not black, then pour off the excess fat into a ramekin. Cover the ramekin and put it in the fridge. Any chunks will settle to the bottom, leaving clean white bacon fat at the top. Use only the top two thirds of the fat — chuck the rest. It is important to use salt-reduced bacon, not just because it’s better for you, but to control the amount of salt. Crushed tomatoes have salt, the beans have salt, and the beef has salt. Add to this some regular bacon fat, and you will have a chili that tends to be too salty. You can add more salt if you like, but you can never take salt away, so we err on the side of caution here.

This recipe should fill your average crockpot maybe three quarters of the way up. Set your slow cooker to “Auto” or your stove to low. Chili has to be carefully simmered or it will burn and taste funny. If you see little bubbles at the sides of the pot (slow cooker) or a few in the middle every second (stove top), this is good. If the top is vigorously bubbling like a young pasta sauce — too hot. Cook the beef and put it, along with any fat it yields, into the slow cooker along with the bacon fat, and the tomatoes. Chop up the onion and throw it in there too. Most brands of crushed tomatoes don’t have enough water in them so add some or all of the water until the chili thins out to the consistency of a smoother pasta sauce — thick enough to draw a shape in, but not thick enough to form big mounds. What I like to do is add the water to the empty can of tomatoes and swish it about to get leftover tomato off the sides. Stir all of it up well and then leave it alone for about an hour or so. This will bring it up to temperature and melt the bacon fat.

Now throw in the rest of the ingredients except for the habaneros and the beans. Stew for around 4-5 hours, stirring once an hour, or whenever you feel like it. Get the stirring done fast so as to not lose too much heat.

I imagine you are wondering about the habanero… so tasty… but so hot! How do we control the heat? If we chopped them up fine and threw them in at the beginning, we would extract all of the capsaicin from them and the chili would be too hot for most. So we’re not going to do that. Instead, we are going to use the pepper itself as a kind of bouquet garnee. About halfway through that 4 to 5 hours, take the habaneros and cut through them twice, about three quarters of the way up along their length, leaving the top intact. This allows flavour to flow out of the pepper, but leaves them big enough to find later. Drop them in. Getting flavour from a habanero this way takes at least an hour, so on the next stir, break out your spoon and give your chili a taste. There should be a delightful floral-like smell and a slight fruit flavour as well as some heat. If it is hot enough for you, fish out the habaneros, gently shake the chili off of them, and throw them away. If you are like me and like lots of heat, leave them in until the end. If one of your habaneros is missing a quarter, don’t freak out, all you have to do is get most of it out to control the heat.

In the last hour or so, drain and stir in the beans. Tinned beans are already soaked and slightly mushy, so all you have to do is get them in there to absorb some flavour. Don’t drain the beans completely, in fact, adding a a tablespoon or so of the bean juice is often not a bad idea, as the slow cooker may have lost too much moisture over the last few hours. Nearing the end of the cooking we are expecting the chili to get stiffer, but no too stiff. When hot you should be able to pull a decent rounded spoonful from your bowl, but not ice cream sized chunks.

And that’s it. Spoon it into a bowl and enjoy!

[OldnBold]

I would like a chilli jam recipe

EDIT: Found one ..

Yields: 5 cups
1 small red bell pepper, roasted, skinned, seeded and very finely chopped
½ pound fresh red chiles (Habaneros and Thai combo)
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pint apple cider vinegar
6 cups granulated sugar
6 ounces liquid pectin

would be interested in others

[scon]

I made a pretty yum habanero salsa the other day.

Ingredients:
1 lg brown onion
2 garlic cloves
3-4 habaneros (I had some red savinias from the garden)
2 or 3 serrano chillis
1/2 can of tomatoes
pinch salt
pinch sugar
about 20g butter
Juice of 1 lime
small handful of coriander

Soften onions but don't brown, add garlic until soft, add chilli and tomatoes and some water - the water prevents the salsa going too jammy. Cook until everything has meshed and the chillis are nice and soft - you may need to add more water. Season with salt and sugar and melt the butter into it.

Remove from heat - bash in mortar and pestle or in a blender until it's at the desired consistency (i like it still with some texture - mortar and pestle is great for this) then mix in the lime juice and the chopped coriander.

Serve with anything that needs a spicy sauce.

[MR CHILLED]

Originally Posted by amsm

Not with Habaneros..not the right flavour.

Yeah I love curry, but not sure it would be right that one....hmmm...

[dannok]

Originally Posted by amsm

Not with Habaneros..not the right flavour.

There's an Indian restaurant around the corner from my place that has a supercharged version of a vindaloo called the 'Find-a-loo'. basically its a normal vindaloo but has an extreme amount of diced Habs added. Taste brilliant!

[amsm]

Originally Posted by HUMMER

http://www.beerfordinner.com/2007/04...-con-carne.php

Bob’s Chili Con Carne

Bob’s Chili Con Carne with Habanero and Beans
version 10

<snip>

And that’s it. Spoon it into a bowl and enjoy!

Made this tonight...awesome, even though the missus came home from the supermarket with diced beef, not mince, so that's what I used. Went down very well with the troops, so will definitely be making again.

[bazerk]

One could try to eat them raw.....?

[CHiMPY]

Originally Posted by bazerk

One could try to eat them raw.....?

Just don't do it at work and video tape it and put it on youtube where you boss can find out...

I made myself a habanero paste. It is tasty but VERY spicy.. Has about 25 habaneros in it and made about 200ml in the end.