food to glow

I don’t know about you, but my spice cupboard{s} runneth over. Like the hall closet we had growing up, when I open the doors to my spice stash something inevitably jumps out. But now, instead of a balled up and rarely used coat falling at my feet, a bottle or jar finds itself in something I am preparing, or manages to maliciously hit me on the head or foot.

Dangerous business being a keen cook.

I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to pain. I’ve never been in a physical fight  – wrestling around with my sister as a child doesn’t really count. And that long-standing motto, ‘no pain no gain’ has never swayed me to do more than is absolutely necessary to maintain fitness. I really should work on the latter.

But hot sauce: we have a whole shelf devoted to these potions of pain.

We have bottles of local hot sauce from any country we visit that has a culture of hot sauces, as well as British-made versions of hot pastes and concoctions from the countries of their ex-pat creators. A certain Bim’s Kitchen in London makes some of the best hot sauces I have ever tasted. We have managed to eke out a bottle of their Fiery African Pepper Sauce for about 2 years since its purchase at Borough Market.

As much as I like high quality bought sauces from small companies {and even bigger ones, like Cholula}, and the spicy fillip they can add to something a bit plain, making your own is something else all together. Harissa is my favourite to make. And as some of my family and friends like it hot too, this is what they are getting from me, as well as a bag of za’atar and a jar of pink peppercorn preserved lemons.  A tag will be affixed listing the ingredients as well as suggestions of how to creatively use this seductively spicy and flavoursome paste. Pomegranate and vanilla vodka made from this recipe over at Ren‘s is also on my list. Must remember to keep some for us!

Harissa, the hot pepper paste closely associated with Tunisian cooking, is incredibly rewarding to make. Easy too. The distinct advantage over bought pastes – other than taste – is that you can control the heat.

I use tiny, and magnificently hot, pequins {up to 75,000 Scoville units!} as they are super cheap, readily available in a Middle Eastern shop near me, and a bag of them – quietly getting more fierce as they age – keeps forever. In comparison, Scotch bonnets and birds eye chillies are about 100,000, and jalapeño and guajillo chilli peppers are much milder at 5,000. Chipotles are between 5,000 and 10,000.

For this easy edible gift recipe, if you decide to use fresh chillies aim for three ‘supermarket’ red chillies – tasting the end of one to test for heat.

After blending you may decide to go hotter, in which case blend in some chili flakes or even some hot paprika. Here is a guide to the heat of chillies: useful if you want to gauge the heat of available chillies before making any recipe calling for a quantity of chillies, such as this one.

If you desire a smokier outcome, use dried chipotles or chipotles in adobo sauce, eliminating or reducing drastically the small dried chillies. And btw, smaller chillies aren’t necessarily hotter so do test each batch of chillies you get before using them in any recipe. The variety, the time of year grown, the country it is grown in – all can influence heat and taste.

Next up is a cauliflower cheese dish that you can serve at Christmas. Think cake!

Other Food Gift Ideas on Food To Glow: Preserved Lemons, Sweet and Spicy Munch Mix, Chocolate Almond Butter Bites, Slow-baked Sunflower Seed Butter Granola, Mexican Hot Cocoa Mix and Kids’ Vanilla Cocoa Mix, Hint of Mint Cocoa Brownies, Sour Cherry and Pistachio Chocolate Bark , Sugared Spelt and Olive Oil Biscuits

And my friend Katie at The Muffin Myth has a food blogger collection of healthy edible gifts to peruse, including her Homemade Vanilla Extract – yum!