Chilli peppers and sweet bell peppers have
never really been absorbed into our eating culture. I cannot think of a single
English (or indeed British) dish that uses it. You do find some sliced red
pepper on a salad, but that’s about it. When Portuguese and Spanish explorers
brought them back from their travels to the New World, many of the Southern
European and Northern African countries quickly assimilated it into their
cooking. Of course, peppers are most successful in Asia. Who can imagine an Thai,
Indian or Pakistani curry without it?
Whenever I cook with peppers – sweet or hot
– it is always in a curry or an Italian pasta sauce. Well with this recipe I
think that Jane Grigson is trying to use peppers in a very English way. In fact
it comes from her daughter Sophie Grigson, now a very successful food writer in
her own right. I think it is a very British preserve; a clear sweet jelly cut
with a bit of vinegar to make it certainly savoury.
Halve and core 2 pounds of cooking apples such as Bramleys seedling, but don’t chuck out the cores (they are a valuable source of pectin). Chop the flesh and blitz in a food processor. Tip them into a preserving pan or stockpot with the reserved cores. Tip in 15 fluid ounces of cider vinegar to prevent the apples from discolouring. Next, deseed and roughly chop 3 red peppers and 4 red chilli peppers. Blitz those up too and add to the pot.
Bring to a boil and simmer for a good 20 minutes. At this point there will be an absolutely delicious smell. Savour it – the smell from this aromatic sharp concoction is wonderful! Strain the hot mixture through a jelly bag and allow it to drip overnight.
Next day, measure the volume of juice you have and pour it into you pan. Stir in granulated sugar – you’ll need a pound for every pint of juice. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and boil for 20 minutes.
Halve and core 2 pounds of cooking apples such as Bramleys seedling, but don’t chuck out the cores (they are a valuable source of pectin). Chop the flesh and blitz in a food processor. Tip them into a preserving pan or stockpot with the reserved cores. Tip in 15 fluid ounces of cider vinegar to prevent the apples from discolouring. Next, deseed and roughly chop 3 red peppers and 4 red chilli peppers. Blitz those up too and add to the pot.
Bring to a boil and simmer for a good 20 minutes. At this point there will be an absolutely delicious smell. Savour it – the smell from this aromatic sharp concoction is wonderful! Strain the hot mixture through a jelly bag and allow it to drip overnight.
Next day, measure the volume of juice you have and pour it into you pan. Stir in granulated sugar – you’ll need a pound for every pint of juice. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and boil for 20 minutes.
Normally, the apples alone have enough
pectin in them to easily set a jelly like this, but the chilli peppers somehow
interact with the pectin and prevent it from happening. To get around this
problem you need to add extra pectin which comes in the form of a viscous
liquid or a powder. Grigson suggests using 3 fluid ounces of liquid pectin (e.g. Certo), but you
could use a sachet of pectin powder in its place. Whichever you use, mix it
well into the boiling jelly. Test for a set using a thermometer; 104⁰C is what
you are looking for. This will take about 10 or 15 minutes of hard boiling. It
is important to note that you shouldn’t
follow the instructions on the packet. Pot the jelly into sterilised jars.
#367 Hot
Red Pepper Jelly. This was very refreshing and delicious – the sweet jelly
combined with sharp vinegar is a great one that really brought out chilli
flavour as well as chilli heat. It was very good with cheese. 8.5/10
I've always assumed that we didn't assimilate peppers, except in dried form, into British food culture is that it takes so much technology to get a decent crop. I find that if one makes a concentrated pectin from apples skins and cores that will solve the setting probem. I use about as much skin and core again as there was on the original apples and that does the trick. In my market stall days I found a hot spiced apple jelly was always a good seller, ditto herb jellies. Once you'd explained to people that jellies go with savouries as well as bread and butter but I'm sure you have your customers well trained on that front. Got a huge quantity of pheasant legs - game pie is calling
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are right, but there are plenty of crops that arent grown here that have been assimilated...
ReplyDeleteThaks for the apple skins tip - I suspectred that that would work, I shall do it for ther next batch where I don't have to follow Jane's recipe to the letter!