Sweet Chilli Sauce
Sweet Chilli Sauce is one of those ubiquitous sauces sold in bottles or jars as either Chinese or Thai. It is what it say – sweet and not spicy, so the chillies used are usually the milder variety. But of…
Category Chilli
Zhug, Yemeni Green Hot Sauce (with everyday ingredients)
Zhug (variantly spelled as zhoug, zhoog, skhug and schug), is a hot chilli sauce or chilli paste from Yemen. To me, Zhug is the Middle Eastern pesto. After all, the word zhoug means “ground”, much like pesto comes from the…
Sichuan Peppercorns (an Essential Ingredient in Sichuan Cuisine)
What are Sichuan Peppercorns? Despite the name, Sichuan peppercorns are not peppercorns and therefore, not related to our common black peppercorns at all! Sichuan peppercorns are the highly aromatic husks of the prickly ash berries which are dried and sold and they…
White Ghost Pepper
Also known as White Bhut Jolokia, measuring a whopping 800 000 – 1 million on the Scoville Scale, the White Ghost Pepper is one hot baby! That’s over 100 times hotter than a jalapeño! This summer (2015) was the first…
How to make Harissa, a North African Chilli Paste
Harissa is a North African chilli paste, earthy and smoky in flavour. In its most basic form, you’ll find just chillies, garlic, salt, olive oil and lemon juice. But you don’t have to stop there, as you’ll see below. Harissa Recipe…
Sambal Ijo (Easy Indonesian Green Chilli Paste)
Today’s recipe, Sambal Ijo, is one of my favourite South East Asian condiments, for its flavour, its colour and its heat. What is Sambal? There is no direct translation for the Malay/Indonesian word “sambal”. It can be both a dry-ish…