chilli sauce (hot)

On my instagram I asked what you guys would like to see next and a lot of people wanted a chilli sauce.

My whole family loves hot food, especially my mum and me, although even my baby sister has been witnessed demolishing a good portion of wasabi that would have brought a grown man to his knees – while she was still a toddler. I love to pour hot sauce over everything, and go to phases of which are my favourites, although I will always have a special space in my heart for tabasco.

When my mum met my stepdad back in the day, he couldn’t eat spicy food at all, even heavily peppered food was too hot for him, but my mum knew he was the right one for her anyway and he learnt to embrace hot food over time and now makes the best chilli sauce I know. My brother and me have also both always loved hot food and are known for forgetting other people’s limits when we cook. Ooops.

photo: Ariane Isele

This is a variation of this sauce, although my step dad’s is cold and mine is warm, since I think it gives it a nice sweetness and depth of flavours. We are also huge fans of garlic and have offended countless dentists and first dates over the years. You might want to adjust the amounts of garlic here, but you don’t have to, if you want to be part of the family.

You will need:

Ten normal red chillies 

2 small red chillies (the hot ones) 

1 red pepper 

about 5 cloves of garlic 

1 onion 

a piece of ginger about the size of your thumb

1 lemon 

1 can of chopped tomatoes 

olive oil

salt, pepper, half a teaspoon of sweet curry and half a teaspoon of smoked paprika

Roughly chop your ingredients – it’s probably best to use gloves, peel the ginger (the easiest way to do that is actually with a spoon, rather with a knife, just scrape off the peel), and grate the lemon zest off the lemon. Sweat the onions in a bit of olive oil, add the garlic, the chillies, red pepper and the ginger. When everything is slightly golden and starts to release the flavour, add the chopped tomatoes and let everything simmer for about an hour. If everything reduces down too much, add a bit water, but only a little bit at the time. Add the smoked paprika, curry, salt and pepper and the lemon zest. Let it simmer for another ten minutes, then blend it.

Now it comes to personal preference, if you prefer a sauce without bits, you can pour the sauce through a sieve and filter out the seeds and parts of the vegetables. If you like your sauces a bit more like a chutney, just fill it into a screw top glass and cover it with olive oil. Covering it with oil will make it last longer.

I would say in the fridge the sauce keeps for about a month, but in our house hold it has never lived long enough to know for sure.

Enjoy!