Day 140: getting to like it hot

One thing is certain: my spice tolerance is evolving.

I wouldn’t say my Mum made a conscious effort to keep chilli-themed meals massively mild when I was when I growing up, so (chilli) heat has definitely been in my life since a young age. When I went off to university, however, I think I stopped eating anything hotter than Tikka Masala altogether, and I never really built it back up again; until starting this cookalong. I mean, it still burns, but I tolerate - and enjoy - it. As long as it has flavour, I am happy to eat it hot and do often find myself adding extra chilli to my regular non-cookalong meals too. I’ve always loved Thai food for its chilli-heat and fragrant flavours; also being the only cuisine in which I could stomach eating coriander; a herb we now use in abundance. It never ceases to amaze me how our taste buds - and mindset - can change.

I have one of my besties coming tomorrow, who adores spicy food, and to go with some meat skewers and salad I’m doing for dinner I need a hot sauce. On a little browse through nigella.com in bed the other night I stumbled across Jumbo Chilli Sauce; it sounded just perfect.

I’m also making Nigella’s Beetroot, Chilli and Ginger Sauce: that ravishingly purple powerhouse sauce - from Cook Eat Repeat - that I can never get enough of, and my thirst for which is never quenched! (I need to include it as an official entry in the cookalong, I know, but I’m yet to be happy with a photo I’ve taken of it).

Nigella’s Jumbo Chilli Sauce

Very little to bore you with here: you simply add ingredients to a blender and blitz. Or, as I did, put them into the vessel that comes with your stick blender, and blitz. I’m still a bit of a wuss when it comes to chilli-heat - though I am slowly embracing a hotter way of living - so I only used one and a half chillies (with seeds). It still packs a mightily fine punch. Though, when putting a bit of each chilli on the end of my tongue (I always like to test their burn before blitzing/chopping into sauces) one was mightily hotter than the other! If you are prone to overheating, I would suggest that you do the same, too, to avoid pulling the short straw and ending up with three anomalously hot chillies. (I say anomalously because the packet said ‘mild’.)

Flavour musings

I took half of this round to some friends’ house for a BBQ last night and enjoyed from it many dips of corn chips. It’s big on flavour, high on heat and wonderfully aromatic; carried gorgeously by the sweetness of the jarred roasted peppers. The peppers I used were in brine and sweet vinegar, which added a lush sourness too. I’m not sure that I’m ready to up the heat, just yet, but give me a while to adapt and I may well try in the not too distant future.

Also ideal, as written here, for feeding an impromptu gathering of teenagers; or indeed any crowd with a taste for the hotter things in life. It’s insanely easy to make and I would recommend you - like I will from now on - keeping a jar, or two, of chargrilled peppers in your cupboards, so you can blitz up a batch at a moment’s notice. Providing, of course, you have the other ingredients in store too, though I imagine a little subbing can be done here and there to suit the scenario.