Fire In The Hole!

A while back I watched a totally inane programme called A Taste Of My Life in which Nigella Slater interviews a so-called celebrity about their dull lives through the food memories they have. At the end of it the celeb had to hold an imaginary dinner for a handful of people of their choice. A bit like Desert Island Discs. Or Dessert Island Dicks, even. The guests chosen were usually rather predictable – Nelson Mandela, JFK, Sigmund Freud, John Lennon etc. This lead me to muse on who I’d like to invite to dinner. After scrapping a couple of ideas (Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Rafa Benitez would be great – “So Bill, what do you think of these fellas’ handling of your legacy?” “Aye, they’ve all done good, save that money shaggin’ fool who used to have that mole on his top lip”). I’d also invite John Peel along coz he’d appreciate that. And I could thank him for pulling a few heaven strings at half time on a certain night in May, 2005 (always knew it was you, John). But yesterday I found the right combo. Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee, Josef Menegele, Attila The Hun, Sweeny Todd and David Caruso. I would proceed to announce to the first five that dinner will only be served once they had beaten up, tortured and mutilated the ginger twunt. I would then sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Any doubts to whether this guy deserves it should watch this snippet from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS7c21jOnI

So, to carry on the theme of things which make one’s sphincter turn inside out this is my take on a humdinger of a chilli sauce. After years, nay, decades of shop-bought disappointments where the fire-breathing, devil-summoning condiment turns out to be a sour, meek, food-wrecking bottle of nothingness I decided to see if I could do any better. And lo and behold the first experiment was fantastic. By using a liquid preservative (in Denmark it’s a sodium benzoate called Atamon) the sauce will keep for over a month after the jar is opened. The strength of the chilli sauce obviously depends on the type of chillis used. I find Thai birds eye chillis are my preferred type, roughly a 7 on the Sphincter Scale. Habaneras are only for ass-assinating people.

Smaug’s Revenge Chilli Sauce

100g chillis (rinsed in cold water)
1 small tin of tomato purée
Vegetable oil (anything neutral – olive oil isn’t good as it goes cloudy in the fridge)
Salt, pepper & sugar
2 or so cloves of garlic
sodium benzoate (optional)

So you peel your garlic, top the chillis and wop them into a food processor together with the tomato purée, preservative, a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper and about 50 ml of the oil. Blitz and taste. Add more seasoning if required. If you want a more loose sauce add more oil. Pour/scoop into sterilized jars and keep in the fridge.