As there was no Test cricket this afternoon I made some chilli jelly.
Ingredients: water (50% cider vinegar) apples (curtesy of Anne), chillis (fresh from farmers market), sugar (darl and light cane sugar).
Equipment: pressure cooker, saucepan and digital thermometer.
This is my first attempt at chilli jelly. The pressure cooker extracts juice from the apples, and flavour from the chillis. I combined the juice and water from the pressure cooker with sugar and boiled it until setting point was reached. Setting point was 104 degrees C.
I’ll taste it later with some single Gloucester cheese once it’s cooled.
I would fill the jars to the top. The two on the R look like they could do with a top-up, as the air in the jar won’t help. Did you sterilise the jars before filling them?
This is what I posted in another thread yesterday, it is from Nigella Lawson , but I have adapted it
150 grammes , deseeded and sliced chillies
150 grammes , deseeded and sliced sweet pepper
1 kg jam sugar
juice of 2 lemons
600 ml cider vinegar (you can et away with 500 ml)
I pair of plastic decorators gloves
six sterilised jars
put sugar in large pan , top up with cider vinegar
bring gently to the boil, when I say gently I mean gently, for some reason it sets easier that way
put on gloves and deseed chillies , do not attempt this with bare hands , slice chillies
deseed sweet peppers and slice
blitz chillies and peppers in food blender , but leave plenty flakes
when the cider has absorbed the sugar and is transparent , put in the chilli and pepper mixture with the lemon juice
bring gently to the boil
when it boils, turn up the heat so that it is a rolling boil do not take your eyes off it for a micro second and manage the boil, so that it is always on the verge but never boiling over
Do this for 12 minutes -it’s a long 12 minutes.
Take if off the heat for 45-50 minutes
Sterilise the jars
At this point , you can stir the mixture and remove any seeds
Use a jam funnel and top up.
I always have a very small jar for the balance
I grew Apache said to be medium hot last year and made jam. Leaving some seeds in resulted in jam which was too hot for my taste (but an excellent flavour.) The plants were very easy to grow in a small greenhouse, much easier than tomatoes.
I was thinking of the extra heat the seeds would give. I suppose if you ground them fine enough the ‘dandruff’ might not be visible. Just curious, I do like to make chutney, jam etc. but have never tried chilli yet.
One way with seeds is to put them in a muslin bag for the boil, then remove them. You get the heat without the seeds in the final product. Tie a string to the bag.
Stick to 150 grammes of deseeded chillies and you won’t produce anything that is overheated .
I did use Nagras, Scotch Bonnets - Apache are fine .
I will use Hot Banana this year because it’s easy to fillet and deseed . Please don’t forget there is also considerable heat in the membranes , which often find their way into the mixture
Mine isn’t wasted as we use it as an ingredient. I suspect it needs diluting with more water as I boiled it down to get a set. Scotch Bonnet and Naga should be far hotter.
I wouldn’t argue with that , most of the membrane gets removed whist deseeding it , what I want is a chilli jam that is somewhere between warm and hot.
Not Dr Guillotine’s Magic Chilli Jam , which I made last year
