Festive hot stuff

[Bear Bibeault]

What would the holiday season be without red and green chile jelly?

(Made today with chiles from my back patio garden.)

[Bear Bibeault]

Before:



12 varieties of chiles went into the Red Chile Jelly.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Are there any houses in your neighborhood for sale? And also, what time do you normally serve dinner?

[Bear Bibeault]

A fair number of homes for sale, in fact. Dinner is usually about 6:00PM during the week and 7:00PM on weekends.

[Bear Bibeault]

P.S. My boss is a sucker for these chile jams. I'll be giving him a jar of each, of course. As I am fond of saying: "Never underestimate the value of sucking up to the boss!"

[Stephan van Hulst]

Oh man I want to try those so badly.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

red one is tempting me

[Will Myers]

can you post the recipe or is it a secret?

[Bear Bibeault]

No secret! Here it is:

BEAR'S CHILE JELLY

12 oz bell pepper flesh, red or green (2 large bell peppers)
12 oz hot chiles, stemmed, red or green
1/2 c lime juice (about 4 limes)
1 1/2 c cider vinegar
4 c sugar
3 oz liquid pectin
1 T no-sugar powdered pectin

1. Sterilize jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

2. Put half the chile flesh in blender with the lime juice and blend to a mash. Pour into bowl.

3 Put the other half of chile flesh in the blender with 1/2 c cider vinegar. Process into a mash. Add to first batch.

4. Put on protective gloves! Place the mash into a jelly bag and squeeze out all the liquid. Reserve all liquid and discard the spent solids. Get rid of the gloves before touching anything! I mean anything! Should yield about 3 c of liquid.

5. Add enough cider vinegar (about 1 c) to make 4 c liquid and place into stock pot.

6. Bring to a simmer and add sugar, stirring to dissolve.

7. Once the sugar is dissolved, add pectins and stir well.

8. Boil until jelling stage is reached (cold-plate or cold-spoon testing method recommended).

9. Ladle hot mixture into sterilized jars and affix tops and bands.

10. Process the jars for 5 to 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.


NOTES

Mix the chiles based upon how hot you want the jelly. The 50/50 balance is just right for my tastes.


Here are a few picture from the process:

After making the mash (does this stuff look nuclear, or what?):


After separating the solids (left) from the liquid (right):


Boiling to the gel point:

[Bear Bibeault]

P.S. I only have one secret recipe, and it's not even my recipe. It's my cousin's who wants to start a business selling a product and obviously doesn't want me spreading the recipe around.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

is it very spicy ?? becuase I heard north amecian don't eat much spicy food...Because in india specially in north part people used to eat hell lot of spice in daily meals.. We also used to eat raw green chilies or sometimes fried green chilies with snaks .. ;)

[Bear Bibeault]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:is it very spicy ??

It depends upon the blend of sweet to hot chiles used. This year's is quite spicy. Last year's (where I used a different ratio) was completely off-the-scale nuclear.

becuase I heard north amecian don't eat much spicy food

As with most generalizations, false. Some people love spicy food, others don't.

[Akhilesh Trivedi]

Bear Bibeault wrote:...completely off-the-scale nuclear.

:rolleyes: what do you mean?

[Bear Bibeault]

Akhilesh Trivedi wrote:

Bear Bibeault wrote:...completely off-the-scale nuclear.

:rolleyes: what do you mean?

Means: very, very hot.