Tasty Noms
Okay, so, my little Scotch Bonnet plant, Stingy, has babies. So I thought I’d cook a couple of them. I chose two small chillies – a red and an orange. Given that the chillies are at their hottest when they’re green, I thought it would be a fairly safe experiment. It was – what dropped out of the bottom of it was a ‘curry’ with a beautiful light fruity flavour combined with a deep and intense heat. Here’s what we did.
Chicken was marinaded for a few hours in pineapple juice and coriander leaf.
Heated some ghee and dropped in the two Scotch Bonnets, thinly sliced. Allowed these to fry for a few minutes than added two chopped onions, two cloves of crushed garlic, and about two inches of grated ginger.
Once the onions started browning, we pitched in the chicken and the marinade, keeping it all moving until the pineapple juice had reduced.
With everything frying again, we add 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika (for colour) and 1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric (also for colour). No cayenne or chilli powder was added – we wanted whatever heat was there to come from the bonnets.
Once the spices had fried for a few minutes, we added two tablespoons of greek yoghurt and stirred until absorbed. Then we pitched in half a tin of coconut milk and let the whole thing reduce down. In the last five minutes or so of cooking, we finished off with 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala.
So, nothing complicated and nothing overpowering, flavour wise. The result was that the beautiful delicate flavour of the bonnets really came through – as did the cumulative heat. Time to try with some green ones!
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