Tag Archives: chilli jam

Hot stuff, try my cider apple and chilli jelly

It’s that time of year when my love/hate relationship with my apple tree definitely swings towards hate. Why? Because it has so many **** apples! Despite pleading emails to the whole neighbourhood to come and help themselves, the only ones who are really excited are the wasps and I am definitely NOT excited about them.

So, I decided to make my world famous (well in my road, anyway!) chilli jelly.  This jelly lasts for ages and is wonderful on top of cream cheese as a dip, or used as a glaze on chicken or pork, or simply served on the side of anything that requires a bit of zing.Chilli Jam 3

Now you can just go out and buy the apple juice if you like, or just use cider, but because of my plethora of apples, I did it the hard way. At this stage you don’t have to worry about weighing anything, so I chopped up the apples, added 6 chopped up lemons for a bit of extra pectin, a bit of root ginger, because I had some left in the fridge and placed them in a large saucepan.Chilli Jam 1 I added half and half vinegar and cider until they were just covered and simmered them on low for about an hour or until they have gone satisfyingly pulpy.

Cream cheese and chilli jam – best party dip ever

I had the neighbours round yesterday and to start with, I put out a big plate of tortilla chips and a load of dips, including hummus, salsa, guacamole and cream cheese with chilli jam. Here is a fact, the cream cheese dip with chilli jam always goes completely in the first half hour irrespective of how much you put out. It’s as if there is something secretly addictive in it that makes you actually incapable of only having one dip in it.

The best thing about it, is that it really is the easiest dip in the world to make and th recipe was given to me by the lovely Joyce and there’s a woman who knows a thing or two, about good, simple cooking.

Go for it.

JOYCE’S LOVELY CREAM CHEESE CHILLI DIP

All you will need is 1 packet of cream cheese, I used philadelphia, but you could in fact use a block of any good, really creamy cheese.

1 small jar of either sweet chilli dipping sauce, or my own lovely home made chilli jam (recipe below or buy it, up to you!).

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh mint and

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil and

a large bag of plain tortilla chips.

Method: All you do is turn out the cheese on to a large plate, place the majority of the chopped herbs on the top (Joyce adds chopped red pepper, too), leaving a little for decoration on the side. Spoon the chilli jam over the top of the cheese and serve. that’s it – pure genius, Joyce.

This is what it will look like VERY quickly.

Quick recap on the Chilli Jam recipe…(loosely based on Nigella’s)

  • 150g fresh red chillies with seeds removed
  • 150g red peppers, seeds removed ( I like to use green and yellow as well for a rainbow effect)
  • 1kg jam sugar
  • 400ml cider vinegar
  • 200ml apple juice

Method

  1. Place the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the red pepper and pulse again until they are chopped in to small pieces
  2. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar and apple juice over a very low heat with as little stirring as possible
  3. Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it to bubble gently for 10 minutes.
  4. Take the pan off the heat and allow it cool for about 30 to 40 minutes
  5. Ladle into clean, sterilised jars.