Pineapple Hot Sauce!

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We are obsessed with hot sauce in our house (and if you haven’t seen Hot Ones on Youtube, you don’t know what you’re missing). This is a super simple one to make, just remember to ‘burp’ it daily, to avoid a spicy explosion on your kitchen bench!

This is a super simple hot sauce recipe using pineapple and Habanero chilis. Habaneros are ideal because of their fruity heat, but you can also use birds’ eye chilis if you can’t find them. The basic idea is that the sugar in the pineapple and chilli ferments, helping to develop the flavour of the sauce. Store your newly made sauce at room temperature for a few days to ferment, opening the lid daily to release any built up gas (otherwise the jar will explode!). Taste your sauce daily as the flavours will continue to develop, and once you’ve reached a flavour profile you love, transfer your hotsauce to the fridge, top stop the fermentation process. Keep it refrigerated from that point onwards.

Ingredients

1 pineapple, skin removed*, chopped

A good handful of Habanero chillies, tops removed, coarsely chopped, seeds in

1 cup white vinegar

1 lime, juiced

A good pinch or two of salt flakes

Method

Sterilise a glass jar and set aside (this is a crucial step, so please take the time to do it properly).

In a blender or Nutribullet, blitz the pineapple and chilli. In a clean mixing bowl, combine the blitzed pineapple and chilli with the remaining ingredients. You can also do it in batches if you can’t fit it all in, then mix everything well to combine.

If you want a refined sauce, pass the sauce through a sieve, lined with muslin cloth (I prefer to keep it chunky).

Pour into the jar and seal.

Open the jar once a day to release the gas created through the fermentation process.

Taste the sauce daily. Once the sauce tastes the way you like it, transfer the jar to the fridge to stop the sauce fermenting further. 

*As always, please dispose of your food waste responsibly. Composting is a cheap and easy way to do it at home so that you can contribute less to landfill and nourish your plants while you do the right thing

Lentils with Bacon, Chilli Oil and Fried Shallots

As published in Good Food

As published in Good Food

It can be so tempting these days when you're feeling lazy and hungry, to pick up the phone, tap on an app and order delivery. It's not bad, and there are definitely times where the convenience of take out can really save you. There is something to be said though, for developing an arsenal of super fast recipes that you can whip up at a few minute's notice, and let's be frank, are probably a lot healthier and more satisfying than take out. 

Good Food Story September 2017

I was recently asked for Good Food what I'd do with a tin of lentils... so here 'tis! It takes about 10 minutes from go to whoah and is full of protein, fibre and of course, a tonne of flavour. 

Ingredients

1/2 brown onion, peeled and finely diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 rasher bacon, diced

1 tin lentils, drained and washed

1 cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt

1 teaspoon chilli flakes in oil

Fried shallots for garnish

Coriander leaves for garnish

In a frying pan on medium heat, sweat the onion, bacon and garlic in a little olive oil for 2 minutes or until the onion is translucent. Add the lentils and stir to combine everything. Pour in the stock, reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer for 5 minutes or until the stock has mostly evaporated. Set aside to cool slightly. On a serving plate, spread the yoghurt over the base, the spoon over the lentils. Top with the fried shallots and chilli oil and coriander leaves and serve.