Be Excellent To Each Other

Just eat it raw in one go.

Jerk chicken.

Make hot sauce.

Or that. I can grab the URLs I based mine on, if you like.

One of mine has fermented. NOT COOL, and not in the "wow, that's really hot" way.

This is a good idea.

So is this. URL me. I've made it before, but always happy to experiment with new formulas.

If you want the seeds (if I don't end up using them for sauce), PM me an address to send them too.

Surely it's easier to just go to a Waitrose?

And film it.

Recipes for jerk chicken seem to call for multiple scotch bonnets. Hmmm.

Make less jerk chicken

Sorry - not sure what happened there.

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of the car I am using to drive to Waitrose to buy more chilli peppers.

Is it Goddess Jasmine's car?

It is never a bad idea. Now I want some for lunch. Dammit.

What the fuck facebook, no searching of my posts?

Well that was a stupid idea, I'll have to start putting them in google docs.

I think the best you can do there is to request a download of your account and you should be able to search within your wall posts that way.

Right. I'll just stick them all here instead, now I've found them.

The green tomato chutney and green chilli pickles are outstanding if you like hot and sour Indian stuff.

Looks good. Thanks. I have sent these to the boss. How long do they keep for?

If the vessels are sterilised properly, the liquid boiled properly, the lids sealed properly (with some preserving plastic rubber-banded over the jar mouth before the lid tightly fastened) and closed before cooling (to generate the yes-I-know-it's-not-a vacuum), "almost indefinitely" in the fridge. Even once opened they're lasting well - the jar of sauce that went bad is the first time it's happened, and it'd been open two months easily. I've had one each of the green tomato and green chilli things open for months and they're fine.

Also I added a couple more. I finished the gherkins a week or two back, still crunchy. The vinegar is delicious. I finished the pickled jalapenos ages ago, and am chomping through the pickled cayennes. The liquor is far too sweet and flavourful, so I'll need to do something about that.

Assuming the weather fucks off and anything grows at all this year.

Also the chilli oil I made with dried habanero flakes I already had and some other dried chillis was good too. That's about done too. Using dried chillis means it'll last months in an airtight vessel kept in a dark, cool place.

One more before I head off to eat my bento box - Tabasco Nightmare that I've mentioned here before. It's a dead simple Tabasco-style sauce - boil water and rice/white-wine vinegar, dissolving some salt in it. Add a dried dorset naga and naga jolokia, after you've opened all the windows and got eye protection and a breathing mask.

When you come to, turn the heat off, add a couple of hundred fresh tabasco chillis, blitz as fine as you can be bothered and put in a sterilised preserving jar, then the fridge to cool.

Mine looks nothing like Tabasco - it's mucky mustard yellow and is pretty fucking hot; just "what clings to half the back of a teaspoon" was enough to turn half a tin of beans with a load of cheddar and stilton melted in into a nice roaring open fire.

Relevance to my interests: HIGH.

Glad to be of assistance, then.

I don't think I followed a single one of those recipes to the letter, but those two had enough things I'm not familiar with that I stayed close. More chillis, obviously.

Green tomatoes (unripe, rather than green-by-design) are something you'll find difficult to get hold of I think.

Do you have a walkthrough/procedure for the salt cured brisket please doc?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -a-brisket and http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -salt-beef
(and, if you like, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... e-pastrami)

Edit -- I would add:
1) don't skip the saltpetre/prague powder. Without it, your meat comes out an unappetising grey, rather than pink
2) brine for longer -- I do 2-3 weeks and still find it hasn't penetrated fully. I'm not sure quite how long you can leave it before it could poison you though.
3) try slow-cooking the meat (100 deg C, 4-6 hours), and try cooking it in beer instead of water.

The Prague powder is also the primary antibacterial.

I thought the salt was the main germ killer?

Nope. Nitrates.

Third page again? Disgraceful.

Tonight we barbecued Merguez sausages and bell peppers, and re-barbecued barbazooka chicken thighs, normal sausages and burgers left over from my BirthdayBQ. Nice enough - properly crunchy chicken skin and burgers.

We also did a whole pork fillet, stuffed with sliced garlic and fresh rosemary, rubbed with loads of dry piri-piri mix (Sainsbury's own, needed using up) and olive oil. Turned every 10 minutes for an hour over medium-hot coals.

Bloody hell.

So, er, if bacon, celery and tomato tagliatelle wasn't a thing before, it is now. We didn't even have any onions in.

Turns out it was great! But that might just be down to my mad skillz.

At my Dad's at the moment.

Last night he cooked Heston's recipe for Chilli Con Carne, including the sides of chilli butter, sour cream, lemon/lime zest and lime juice.

It was immense. Best chilli I've ever had. The chilli butter is a thing of wonder.

I was too poorly to be bothered getting these off the camera last night.

I over-cooked it, but it's still tender and delicious.

Bloody hard not to over-cook a pork loin on a barbecue, I'd have thought. I'm impressed you managed to cook it through without it becoming a tree branch.

I have my second kimchi attempt bottled (the first one was....interesting), and my meat for burgers is salting in the fridge. Mincing time soon!

I have read this recipe this morning. It sounds bloody good.

Did he do it completely the Heston way and serve it over smouldering hay?

Those shots were lit by two old, yellowing 40W mini-spots 3 feet above. New camera is good at low light. I mostly cooked it on a highest-possible grill (going on a foot above the coals), lowered it towards the end as the coals cooled and to get a crust.

that's an inviting colour. What's kimchi?

Korean spicy pickled cabbage. It's amazing.

there's a korean restaurant in manchester that we want to go to. Now I want to go more.

Woo, burgers!

Meat (a kilo of skirt steak, and a kilo of pork shoulder)


Mince (the above meat, plus a good helping of bone marrow)


Burger roll


Burgers!


Mmmm burger.


The 'Heston method' (lay all the strands of meat out in a line so they all face the same way) was something of a disaster. The mince strands didn't hold together well enough at all, so I ended up just mincing it into a bowl. Burgers were excellent. Juicy, meaty, soft, and rich. Would make again.

mmmm burgers. You lucky bugger.

Cor. Sexy.

Those burgers look great, Cras. Have you bought a mincer then?

Breakfast quiche (onions, chorizo, potatoes, eggs and cheese) in the oven. Looking forward to it.

I've had a mincer for ages, but a manual one. Turns out using one hand to feed, one hand to turn, and one hand to deal with what's coming out the end leaves me deficient, to the tune of one. So Jen got me a mincer attachment for the food processer for my birthday, and it's excellent.

I am eating a roll. Been looking forward to it all morning. It's amazing. Bought two packs for £1 at Tesco. Russell also has a roll, but a different kind of roll. It was also in the two packs for £1 offer.

That's not a lot of information to go on Mimi. Describe these 'rolls'!

They are made from a wheat flour blend of 96 different flours, hand ground by virgins from Vienna using a rolling stone made of roughened rose quartz. They are then shaped into perfect and unique 'monks roll' domes by the hands of Iberian monks who are each at least 85 years old, as per a 400 year old tradition. They are then baked in an oven heated by burning lavender stalks and sold in batches of 6 in Tesco for 65p, or two batches (12 rolls) for £1.

Sadly, I could not get the depth of field to make this roll look as arty as it obviously deserves.

That's more like it!

If you're ever around, you should come over for a roll.