Chilli Jam

My mother in law gave us some chilli bushes to plant. She has a few going at her house too. Between us we have more chillies than we know what to do with. My mother in law usually hangs them up to dry and then process' them to make chilli flakes. Since we had plenty of chilli flakes I decided to make a chilli jam of sorts. This can be used on the side of the meal or in cooking. As it is a preserve it will keep for a number of months in the fridge. However there is a warning, you need to have a little taste and see how hot your chillies are. If they are hot I recommend deseeding at least half. If they are not hot not you can leave them all in. Obviously the other factor here is "how hot do you like it ?".

*You'll need to have sterilised jars for this recipe. If you have a dishwasher then that will sterilise them. If not you'll have to do what I do and boil them for ten minutes then dry them out in a very low oven. Or use your friends dishwasher.

INGREDIENTS

Makes about three jars depending on jar size

500g of chillies

4 onions

 3 cloves of garlic

1 tbs of good quality sea salt

1 cup of raw organic sugar

250g of grape seed oil

200ml of vinegar 

DIRECTIONS

Peel and roughly chop your onions and garlic. Roughly chop your chillies and deseed half of them if you need to. Place your chillies, onions, garlic, salt and grape seed oil in the blender and process until you have a paste, this will take 30 seconds to a minute. Cook in a heavy based pot for an hour, on low to medium heat stirring regularly. After an hour add the sugar and vinegar and continue to cook for another half hour to an hour. Still continue to stir it regularly to avoid burning. It's ready when it the oil starts to separate, it's dark and thick and jam like. Place in sterilised jars while it's still hot. 

Enjoy!