And this recipe must be the slowest I have done. It started last year, when I mooted the thought of wormwood green chilli sauce. It stuck with me - but I had to wait for the wormwood to grow, and then undergo a painful process of rectification you know only too well.
Even then, the wait was not over. I had to wait for the Chilli Man to visit the Farmer's Market. The Chilli Man only turns up once a month, always smiles, and laughs at everything. It must be the heat. I'm always delighted to while away a minute or two sampling his latest goods and chatting about polytunnels and the Scotch Bonnet crop (early, this season). The first time we met he threw me a handful of the delightful padrons. I first sampled these, unexpectedly, in Madrid, mounded - fried and salted - next to a fine steak. They are fragrant and wonderful, and one out of every ten is explosively hot.
Last weekend I was in luck - he had a bucketload of deep green peppers, which did not disappoint. I didn't even stop to chat about his poly-tubes, but rushed home and supplemented them with a fine array of other ingredients - some bird-eyes, a habanero or two, freshly juiced ginger, garlic, shallots.
Two challenges - keep it green, and avoid losing the wormwood scent. I tried to cook it only briefly, and threw in the strongly alcoholic extract at the last minute so it could boil off.
There is nothing wrong with an alcoholic sauce - it's just not what I was looking for.
As for the rest - I have to keep my secrets, of course. Though I can mention that my nose was nearly destroyed by a sudden burst of chilli fumes, and removing my contacts later in the evening was quite a shock!
So here it is.
Perhaps not as green as I would like - though when I sneaked a peek at a bottle of lurid green sauce in a local shop I couldn't help spotting the colourants in the ingredient list. Something I would not do. Now I just have to wait while it matures. Only then can the sampling begin. It may have worked, it may not. I really can't wait.
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