Super-hot Mozambican peri-peri sauce and other fiery stuff

This fiery recipe was shared with us this week, along with other hot recipes. 

From Marnix de Lorm:

Super-hot Mozambican peri-peri sauce recipe

Use this to marinate prawns or to make Portuguese chicken – actually, I eat it with pretty much everything.

Ingredients

½ cup white vinegar

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice

½ cup good olive oil (don’t use sunflower or canola)

1 tot chilli powder

1 tot paprika

1 tot salt

1 tot garlic, chopped

10 African bird’s-eye chillies, finely chopped (don’t remove the seeds as this is where the heat is)

Method

Combine everything in a sterilised glass jar and refrigerate. Give it a good mix before use. Be prepared to make more for all your chilli-loving friends.

Ann’s recipes supplied by her friend Anna Crowe:

Ann’s chilli relish

Chillis, any kind, depending on your preference for heat

Garlic cloves, deskinned

Fresh coriander (optional, BUT I love it)

Olive oil

Cheap common vinegar

Salt

Sugar

Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)

Method

Top and tail chillies and cut into chunks with the seeds still intact. Put everything into a food processor and blitz.

Store in a screwtop jar in the fridge. Keeps for ages.

Note: Amounts of ingredients will vary according to your taste – you cannot make a mistake, just keep tasting as you blitz. OR not, if like me, you eat what you make, no matter how hot, OR not hot. Sometimes, I forget to put something in. Each type or combination of chillis will give a different character to the sauce.

Variation: Turn it into a sauce, which rivals Nando’s, by thinning with cheap (common spirit) vinegar.

Tip: I have made this relish for years and years, across the oceans, with whatever chillies I had on hand – and everyone loves it. I love to eat it by the spoonful, straight from the jar – I believe it makes the body release dopamine, so it’s my drug of choice. I have just recently (2022) found a recipe for something similar that is served at the African Café! Sort of like an uncooked Mazavaroo (Mauritian chilli paste), minus ginger.

Ann’s sweet chilli sauce

(Choose your own quantities according to taste)

Chillies, de-seeded

Onion, roughly chopped

Tart green apples, cored *

Sugar

Cheap white spirit vinegar

A few garlic cloves (optional)

Salt to taste

Method

* I often use non-tart apples and then add some/lots of lemon juice. Sometimes I peel the apples, sometimes I don’t.

Measure out an equal volume (or thereabouts) of each of all the ingredients, except the garlic and the salt.

If you have a food processor, bung the whole lot in and give it a blitz, or just chop everything up.

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and boil for 15 mins.

Remove from the heat and let it cool slightly, then blend the sauce with a blender, a hand mouli or pass it through a sieve to get a smooth sauce with a pouring consistency.

It looks like a mess until you blend it, then it gets a lovely consistency and a beautiful colour.

While it’s still warm, pour the sauce into sterilised bottles and seal.

Note: If you grow your own chillies, you can really experiment with the heat levels and flavours, using this basic recipe as a guide. Each type or combination of chillies will give a different character to the sauce.

Tip: Peppadews are our best chillies, if we can get them. When I made this with long, thin red chillies I used half of those and half ordinary red salad peppers, because I was worried it would be too strong. It worked well.

From Giulietta Harrison:

Giulietta Harrison’s pickled peppadews

It’s basically equal quantity white wine vinegar (I use spirit) to sugar with your cleaned peppadews.

Essentially, you just need to cover the peppadews with vinegar, and then add an equal amount of sugar, bring to the boil, simmer for a short while (about 1 minute) and then bottle.

Tip: Don’t cook for too long: the sugar gets too sticky and the peppadews too pap.

Send us more of your peri-peri or hot sauce ideas. DM