Get Yo Pickle On! - Making Chilli Jam and Lime Pickle

It's nearly Christmas once again and that means I've got even more yummy things to show you this year for you to make for your loved ones instead of getting them what they actually want. Last year I made mango chutney and this time around I thought I'd up the ante and make a set of three pickles/jams for my dearest fambam. The chutney recipe can be found here, so let's go straight on to the other two, starting with...

Lime Pickle

Difficulty - 2/5

Duration - 3/5

We'll begin proceedings with the more time consuming of our two products for today: the lime pickle. Stolen gracefully from this lovely website, this is a traditional Indian recipe which uses a few unusual ingredients; I had to order some of the spices online so there might be a little more time needed to prepare for this one. Luckily, step one takes 3 weeks, so you've got ages to get all of this stuff together:

All of the ingredients hanging out with what looks like a bag of heroin.

- 4-5 juicy limes; a necessary ingredient what with this being lime pickle

- A rather unhealthy amount of salt (around 150g)

- 3 finely chopped cloves of garlic for anti-vampiric properties

- 6-7 green chillis (they match the limes), also finely chopped

- 2-3 tbsp Chilli powder (plus more or less depending on how many plys your toilet paper has)

- 1/2 tsp Turmeric

- 2 tsp Fenugreek

- 1 tsp Mustard Seeds

- 1 tsp Cumin

- 1/2 tsp Asafoetida (this is nearly impossible to find, I suggest Amazon if you're not near a particularly big Tesco)

- A couple pinches of Curry Leaves

- Some oil

That's a rather imposing list of ingredients so we'll start with the pickling process and come back to the rest later. Give the limes a wash and pat them dry with kitchen roll before cutting them up into eighths. Then take some big jars (it's probably easier if these aren't the ones you'll eventually be putting the pickle in) and layer the limes with a good sprinkle of salt. The salt aids in the pickling process but remember that it will also alter the flavour at the end; you want a good dose of the stuff without going too overboard. Around 3-4 tablespoons per large pasta-sauce-sized jar should do. Give the jars a jolly good shake and leave them on a windowsill in the sun for 3 weeks.

Wish I could lay around soaking up the rays for a month. Lucky limes...

Be careful when you're putting the limes in the jars to keep the rims clean. Salt, fruit and fresh air over time don't exactly mix nice and you'll end up with nasty looking salt deposits on the side of the jar if you're not careful or don't give the rim a good wipe before closing the lid.

I make mistakes so you don't have to.

As they pickle in their own juices (how lovely) the limes will start to turn brown, like so:

This looks delicious.

After 3 or more weeks you're ready for the cooking and the spices; aw yeah. First things first, get your jars (you'll just about manage 3 reasonably sized jars with this recipe) sterilising in the oven at 120 degrees Celcius for an hour or so. Then heat a glob of oil in a pan until its nice a warm, throw in the mustard seeds and wait until they start losing their shit and popping all about the shop. My new phone has a feature that lets you essentially make gifs (yay!) so this is what you should be looking for:

Film it in portrait, they said. It'll look great, they said.

Add the chopped garlic and fry it until it goes brown, then put in the chopped chillies and curry leaves and sauté it for a minute. For the uninitiated, sautéing means to cook something on a really high heat while shaking the pan around to look like you know what you're doing. Then come the lime pieces; chuck 'em in with the juice at the bottom of the jars, stir well, and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes. 

Now the only thing left to do is add the rest of the spices (that would be the chilli powder, fenugreek, turmeric, cumin, and asafoetida) one at a time by sprinkling them evenly over the whole pan and stirring well. The resulting heavily aromatic brown and green mush is your finished pickle!

Yum.

Give it a wee taste and sprinkle in any extra spices you think you might need (I added a little cayenne pepper because I hate regular bowel movements). Once you're happy, spoon the pickle into the sterilised jars and pop them somewhere to cool down. Hey, while you wait why don't you try making some...

To make this segue slightly less obvious, here is me cleaning my teeth whilst holding my jam spoon.

Sweet Chilli Jam

Difficulty - 1/5 

Duration - 1/5

Redder than a well-spanked tomato.

This stuff is easier to make than an embarrassment of yourself at a poetry reading and it tastes fabby; sweet with a nice little hint of spice. The recipe is courtesy of Nigella Lawson, but I've regurgitated it in all its concise glory below for your convenience. You'll need:

The whole recipe in a sentence: Throw all of these in a pan and wait.

- 150g fresh red chilli peppers (buy them as hot as you like)

- 150g fresh red not-chilli-just-plain-normal peppers (you know, the ones that go nice with hummus)

- 1kg jam/preserving sugar or normal sugar with pectin added to it

- 600ml cider vinegar (this does not mean Strongbow mixed in with chippy sauce)

See that picture to the right? All those peppers? The veritable stack of the things? I'm a fucking ninny cause that's how much I thought 150g of pepper was. It's not. It's really not. One does the job pretty comfortably so that's closer to a kilo. I was way off; although it does make for a nice photograph.

Once again you'll want to start by sterilising your jars. The recipe will fill about 4-5 250ml jars so either tailor the quantities to fit your needs (bearing in mind that cooking times will also change as a result) or get your mitts on every jar you can find and fill them until you run out of jam.

Now you'll want to start dissolving the sugar in the vinegar. Get a big saucepan, pour all of the vinegar into it and turn the hob onto a low heat. Add the sugar gradually as as the vinegar heats up and let it dissolve; this can take a while so it's best to prepare the two types of pepper while you wait. Do this thing of which I speak by lopping off the ends of your peppers and deseeding them.

Fun fact: Doing this is essentially castrating a vegetable. Have a nice day.

Next, chop up the chillis and peppers into tiny bits. Because I'm awesome and a budding domestic goddess, I got a cool new food processor/whisk/blender combo thing for my birthday so I used that. It's awesome. I also forgot that I had been handling chillies and rubbed my eye. Although unrelated I thought I ought to remind you that real physical pain and stupidity went into making this.

See how the pepper is now tiny and in bits? This is what you should aim for.

Put the peppers to the side until the sugar has fully dissolved (the recipe says you shouldn't stir the pot while dissolving the sugar, but I see no reason why you shouldn't. Only God can judge you now). Once the sugar is all gone, bring the pot to a rolling boil and throw the peppers in:

Roll, roll, roll your boil, gently on the heat...

Top tip: Don't leave the pan unattended for even a second. We had people round while I was making this and I left the kitchen for a matter of moments to see them to the door and the whole thing boiled over spectacularly.

I am not a good cook.

If you're not looking to make a nice, nigh-unliftable layer of jam on the surface of your hob, be vigilant and turn the heat down if the boiling gets too rough. You want the jam to start thickening up a good bit before you think about dishing into jars; a handy guideline is about 10-15 minutes of boiling will give you a runnier sort of sauce (which I made) while around the 20 minute mark will start giving you a much more jelly-like consistency. Go for what your heart tells you and, when you're ready, decant into a clean, dry jug and pour your jam into the hot, sterile jars from the oven. Put the lids on tight, leave the jars to cool and you're done.

"We is chillin', y'dig?"

As you can see, all the bits of pepper have stayed floating at the top, but if you invert the jars a few times and leave them the flakes should settle nicely throughout as it cools.

Hooray! Even more pickles and preserves to add to my ever-growing arsenal of crappy home-made gifts. Got any great recipes for stuff that I might like? Let me know. For now, I shall bid you good day.