There are lots of lovely chillies ripening in the Northop polytunnels and this is a great recipe for preserving them!
Chilli jelly (or as Nigella calls it – ‘chelly’) – goes perfectly with cold meat or cheese.
It’s very easy and quick to make unlike most jellies, if you like your chillies on the fiery side use more – I harvested 10 red chillies over 2 weekends to make 8 8oz jars of jelly.
Ingredients
10 red chillies (deseeded and cut into 4 pieces)
1 large red pepper (cored, deseeded and cut into rough chunks)
1 kg jam sugar (the one with pectin in)
600 ml cider vinegar
Method
- Sterilize your jars (wash in hot soapy water and put in oven 150C for a few minutes) and leave to cool.
- Put the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.
- Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring.
- Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rolling boil for 10 minutes.
- Take the pan off the heat and allow it cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.
- After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the hints of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.
Recipe from nigella.com