About chilli peppers and Homemade roasted chilli sauce recipe

Beautiful chillies from Grown with Love by Barfooots             credit:©Rosana_McPhee

What are chilli peppers?

Herbs, spices, vegetables, condiments, decoration? It’s all of the above!  After the salt, it is possibly the most used flavouring worldwide. It can be found nearly all over the world.
They are a potent variety of capsicum with various forms, pods of differing in size, colour, and strength of flavor.  Chilli peppers originated in the Americas and with the Discovery and colonization they were introduced to the rest of the world: Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The Spanish and Portuguese were the first outside the natives, who had contact with this plant and after that took them everywhere, acquiring features and names in each of them as part of every culture. The Indians of the Americas were using the peppers continuously in their recipes, Europeans began their domestication much later.

Peppers seem to have arisen in  7,500 BC in Central Mexico region. Native to the Western Hemisphere and probably evolved from an ancestral form in Bolivia and Peru. Apparently, the Indians have cultivated peppers between 5200 and 3400 BC, which puts the peppers among the oldest cultivated plants in the Americas. It is not exactly known when the peppers were introduced in New Mexico. It is believed that the indigenous natives used then on their culinary and as medicine, a common practise among the Maya. Until the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the Aztecs farmers had already developed dozens of varieties. Undoubtedly, these peppers were the forerunners of a vast number of types found today in Mexico and grown in New Mexico for at least four centuries.

While conquering the New World, the Europeans were looking for an alternative source of black pepper, which at the time was the favourite condiment in Europe. This small red fruit, widely used by Native Americans for centuries – red pepper – Seemed to fit the bill.

Baptised “pimiento”, the Spanish word for black pepper, capsicum is not related to the genus Piper, containing Piper nigrum L., the source of black pepper and white pepper. After a century, these hot peppers had spread to every continent.
More recent studies claim there was evidence for the presence of chilli peppers in Europe in pre-Columbian times.

 The peppers enhance the flavor of foods and, depending on the dish, it should differentiate the array to match the taste and hotness. The pepper burning, unique in the plant kingdom, results from the presence of a group of specific alkaloids. Pepper “bell” or sweet pepper, generally refers to non-spicy peppers or little spicy, while the chilli pepper varieties mean of burning or hot peppers.

Fresno red chilli

Chilli Love

The lovely people at Grown with Love by Barfoots sent me a box full of fantastic chillies from all over the world, that are grown in their chilli structure in the UK. It came on a beautiful box, which arrived impact in my house in London.  Get your chillies from them! 

Here is my recipe for a delicious and easy to make homemade roasted chilli sauce using Fresno red chillies (also known as red jalapeño).

Red Fresno chilli peppers are available all year-round, with peak season late summer through fall. Cooking Fresno chillies emphasises their smoky sweetness not found in its raw form.  Red Fresno chilli peppers are small plump thumb-sized and conically shaped chillies. They are smooth, firm and waxy with a glossy sheen. Their seeds can be used to grown more chillies. A hot chilli with flavor and heat very similar to that of a jalapeño or a serrano chilli. The Red Fresno is categorised as hot pepper It ranks between 2,500 to 8,000 units on the Scoville index. 

Homemade roasted chilli sauce recipe

Homemade roasted chilli sauce recipe

Makes about 1litre of sauce

Ingredients
1 kilo of red ripe tomatoes, washed, peeled*, and roughly  chopped
1 red sweet pepper
8 garlic cloves, finely minced
2 large red onions, finely minced
2-3 Fresno Red chili peppers 
3 fresh sprigs of thyme
salt to taste

Method
1)In a large pan add the garlic, onions, the sprig of thyme and tomato in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes then simmer until the vegetables are completely cooked.
2)While the tomato sauce is slowly cooking, place the all the peppers  (sweet and hot) on a piece of baking parchment on a small baking sheet. Roast the peppers at 250C until they are blistered all over. The more blister the better!
3)Let the peppers cool for 5 mins, peel the skin off the peppers, scrape and discard the seeds and membrane.
4)By now the tomato sauce should be ready. Fish out the thyme stalks. Place all the roasted peppers and tomato sauce in a blender –  blitz until smooth, taste for salt, I added 1 shallow tablespoon of coarse rock salt.  Blitz again. It will be quite thick. Water down if you like it a bit more runny, I added 25ml of water.
At this point, you can either leave it rustic looking or sieved it for a smooth, more liquid finish.  It’s up to you.
5)Place in sterilised bottles/jars – it keeps for up to 6 weeks in the fridge. It can be frozen in batches.

Homemade roasted chilli sauce recipe

Tips and suggestions:-
* The boiling water method:
Boil the kettle or a pan with enough water to emerge the tomatoes.  In a large bowl add the boiling water and next to it a bowl of ice-cold water. Wash the tomatoes, remove the stems that may still attached.
Using a sharp knife, slice a shallow X into the bottom of the tomato opposite the stem side. Plunge the tomatoes in the hot water for a few seconds.  Place them into the ice-cold water for a few seconds and finish to peel off the tomatoes skin quickly.  Done! 
-Tomatoes, variety is the spice of life, so use any variety and colour in season, why not add some sundried tomatoes? 
-Chilli – you can use any variety you like or have at home
-Herb – again, add the herb of choice.

Enjoy! 

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Homemade roasted chilli sauce recipe

Disclosure: I receive a box of chillies from Grown with Love by Barfoots for review purposes. All views and words are my own. I love chilli! Lots of Love from Hot&Chilli!