Best Chilli Sherry recipe
Comments(21)
I’m not successful when I try and grow chilli plants from seed. Everything starts off well, and I give my surplus plantlets away to friends. A few weeks later, when my plants are beginning to look peaky, I spot the giveaways flourishing in their gardens. It’s maddening. Last year one friend even complained that she had a glut!
So I supply the neighbourhood but am forced to cheat with chilli plants at home. By mid July, when it’s clear that all hope is lost, I drive to a good garden centre. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a large chilli plant, covered with flowers for under a fiver. I put it in my greenhouse and it thrives. On the garden tour no one as yet has admired my chilli plant, so for the past three years I haven’t had to lie.
We consume a lot of chillies. And using our own, albeit adopted, gives me enormous pleasure. When we go away to southern Europe I search for chillies to bring home so that there is a tiny piece of that place in our larder. Sunnier climates produce great chillies.
We harvest our chillies before the first frosts and string them up on long lengths of cotton to dry. Using a darning needle, tether the chillies through their stalks along the thread, making sure that they are spaced out well and do not touch. We hang them across a window for several weeks until they are completely dry and store them in air tight jars in a cool dry place. We always keep a few fresh chillies back to make chilli sherry.
Chilli sherry is a great way of pepping up sauces, stir fries and soup. Sometimes we use a tiny dash of chilli sherry in a salad dressing or a casserole. A few of the little Como peppers are going straight into a bottle of dry sherry this evening.
If you are handling chillies be careful to wash your hands thoroughly afterwards. Oliver, a friend of ours, forgot to do this and went for a pee with painful consequences.
Chilli Sherry recipe
Ingredients:
- 1×75 ml bottle of dry sherry (medium price range)
- 4 hot fresh chillies (we’ve used dried ones in the past. They work but not quite as well)
Method:
- Pour yourself a glass of sherry to drink whilst you prepare this potent recipe.
- Wash the chillies well and put into the sherry. Reseal bottle.
- Leave to seep for at least a month before using.
- Label clearly and keep away from the drinks tray.
- Sometimes if I have a bad cold I take a small glass before bed as it clears the head in seconds.
Tips and tricks:
- The longer you seep the chillies the stronger the flavour. We have a vintage bottle of chilli sherry complete with chillies (three years old). A tiny sip clears the nose like lightening when you have a cold.
- On the health front, chillies can be beneficial if eaten in moderation. They have antioxidant and anti inflammatory properties and are even supposed to improve the quality of your sleep.
- If you can find some pretty bottles, chilli sherry makes a good and original Christmas present.
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Thank you for your comments. And a bit of silly bath time fun with the Frothing Sea Monster trick!
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HG
sounds a good idea. what if sherry’s not your tipple? chilli vinegar’s a good standby..what else? i’ve made my own powder using the electric coffee grinder, keeps for ages, but best in the fridge. i always put a few in with pickled onions and with oven dried toms for a bit of added zing. i once worked with a woman from southern india who used to munch a fresh chilli every lunchtime, the show off!
Hi
This is interesting and I shall have a go. In the 1960′s I spent a year in Bermuda and they use Chilli Sherry as an seasoning for things like soups – just a small drizzle in the middle of the plate of soup gives it a real zing. I don’t remember what flavours the soups were but I do remember Consomme and also thick, probably potatoey soups. Anyway I thought that was the only place that used it so great to find a recipe so that I can recapture the flavour!!
Hi LizO,
This is well worth making. A slug is great in soup on a cold winter’s day.
Great in Bloody Mary’s!
Brilliant idea, H, thanks for dropping by.
[...] Chilli vodka. Just a bottle filled with vodka and some chillis infusing in it. This is already rather spicy (has 2 thin red long chillis in it, deseeded, 1 fat green small chilli, deseeded, 2 scotch bonnets, deseeded and 1 extra scotch bonnet, with seeds) – one very very small sip was enough to make my mouth burn. I had intended this as a gift but i think its already too spicy for its recipient so i may just give this one to Michiel and make another – less spicy – one for the person i was gonna give it to. I also have a lovely recipe for Chilli Sherry i might well try as well – in a few weeks anyway when i can afford to buy a bottle of sherry! [...]
If making chilli vodka and your preference is for it to not be too spicy and just a slight chilli kick. Slice the 3 chillis lengthways, deseed them. Then leave in the vodka for 12-24 hours depends on preference (you can taste it as the spiciness will remain the same once the chillis are removed), remove the chillis then reseal the vodka bottle with candle wax. If like me you like it for punishing shots at parties leave 2 halves in the bottle and seal it. It will get spicier the longer you leave it, I have a bottle in the cupboard from 2005 when I first started with 4 sliced chillis in that frankly i am too scared to drink.
[...] I used ground coriander seeds instead. For added spice I used my infamous Scotch Bonnet-infused chilli sherry. This lives in the larder, well away from the drinks cabinet and with a large warning notice [...]
One of my fave gastronomic memories (and I have a few) is from the Umzolozolo game lodge in South Africa where we were served an amazing warm cucumber soup which was amazing in it’s own right.A few drops of Desmond’s chilli sherry added just the right zing to make this an unforgettable dish. I’m off to the supermarket right now to pick up a bottle or two of sherry so that I can put those fresh chillies in the kitchen to work.
Hello Trevor
Cucumber soup and a dash of chilli sherry sounds divine.
We top up the same bottle with sherry and another chilli every now and then. I use it a lot, just to perk up a dish and have a glug a day when I catch a cold – it clears the head in seconds.
I have been making Chilli Sherry for Family and Friends for years…As an old soldier it was a standard British Army Recipe to make many dishes “zing”.
My original started over 20 years ago and the golden rule is NEVER, NEVER let it go below half measures before a top up…..
I am just now producing some for Christmas presants that has matured for over 10 years, so smooth with that great kick…..
For all who have discovered (try ox tail soup but make your owwn soup from fresh ox tail) have a Grest Christams and Happy 2010.
Hi Big Al
Thanks so much for all your tips. I use chilli sherry a lot in my cooking.
I make an oxtail stew – must try making some soup.
Lets hope we all have a great Christmas and a happy 2010
My grandparents wanted me to find a good recipe for this and I think they will love it. They love strong and spicy chillis. When they went to visit my uncle in Queensland, they found a farm that had these being sold so they bought a bottle and loved it so much that they put my on a mission and they grow chillis.
Hi Alice,
just had a glass of the Chilli Sherry I made last December with the chillies we grew ourselves. It’s maturing nicely, I’ll have to top the bottle up and add another chilli from this years crop!
Hi would love to have a go at making the chilli sherry, could anyone let me know if you just pop the whole chillies in the mix or should they be deseeded or pricked.
Thanks in advance
Kaz
Oh and can I use any sort of chillies in the sherry as we have quite a few different ones growing at the moment on our windowledges. I have a very pretty golden cayenne that I would love to use and it is quite a long variety, would also like to add some Medusa chillies to the mix, would it be OK to mix the varieties?
Thanks again
Kaz
Hi Kaz
You can use any variety or mix of chillies that you want
Brilliant, thanks fn, could you also let me know whether I should put chillies in whole, split, deseeded or pricked (have decided to try this using mead).
Thanks
Kaz
Hi Kaz
I put the chillies in whole.
I would just like to say the photos you use on the website are very sharp. really good job.
if you grow your own chilis i would like to encourage you to visit my site and leave a comment and even write a article about your growing chillies experience.
Growing Chillies
[...] of Madeira (I used some sweet Pedro Ximenez sherry, another magic Spanish ingredient) 1 tsp chilli sherry (Eliza says a tablespoon, but my Scotch Bonnet chilli sherry is so strong I didn’t dare) [...]