Chilli sauce: one week later
Well, that didn’t quite go as planned.
What is supposed to happen is the chilli paste sinks down into the jar and a layer of clear vinegar forms on top, which you skim off. This vinegar will contain a good chunk of the capsaicin from the chillis in it (this is the chemical which gives chillis their hot flavour), which calms the sauce down. Except I have no vinegar layer, for whatever reason. So I have an entire jar of very potent, rather sour sauce.
Not that it’s unpleasant — it’s rather tasty, in fact, I just ate a teaspoon of it — but it’s probably not all that useful as a table sauce. I might freeze most of it in ice cube trays and use it as an additive to curries and suchlike. The original recipe says this will keep for months in the fridge but even so I’m not sure I’d get through it all.
Get dried crushed chillies. put some in a jam jar and fill with olive oil. Put in fridge. Stir every couple of days. after a week the oil should start to change colour. This will keep for several months getting stronger all the time.