Spicefreak

Hey folks, I believe I promised to show you all the first of my sponsored recipes this weekend. So, to get things started, I’m going to take a look at what can be done with The Chilli Project‘s 💰Fatalii Chilli Salt💰.

A delightfully citrus-tinged, mellow and peppery, yellow chilli product which really brings out the freshness of my fried padrons.

And sure, I’ve talked about this appetiser in the past but never quite like this. Not with today’s blend of african chilli salt and earthy, indian spices, pushing the peppers’ own nuttiness to the next level, while also bringing forth subtle fruity hints which I never knew were there before.

If you like padrons, you’ll love this brand new take on them and, while they might not be in season right now, the middle of january is when I most often see them in stores. So there’s no easier time to give this dish a go!

To make it, you will need:

125g padrons

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons mustard oil

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

A hefty helping of The Chilli Project‘s 💰Fatalii Chilli Salt💰

And a wide pan with a lid.

Now I talked about this in an earlier padron recipe but, while its drier, earthier taste makes a world of difference to these peppers, the precautions surrounding mustard oil are a bit weird. It’s commonly used in indian cooking, yet not considered safe to sell as a food product in its pure form.

This strikes me as particularly peculiar because what little evidence of it doing harm exists is in animal testing, not human studies, and its human use has proven quite extensive over the years. But, regardless of the reasons, the bottom line is that you can only purchase mustard oil as either a hair or massage product. Or as part of a blend.

So, if the idea of cooking with a non-food product worries you, then you won’t be able to follow today’s recipe to the letter and will have to track down one of those commercially available blends, I’m afraid. But the result should still be the same: Eight tablespoons of mixed, roughly fifty fifty, mustard and non-mustard oils, ready to be heated in a wide pan.

From there, throw in the teaspoon of coriander seeds and warm them up, on medium, for about five minutes. Stirring so that the seeds brown evenly.

At the very first sign of your oil smoking, drop the heat down as low as it will go and chuck in the peppers, leaving the stems on to provide handholds, come eating time. At this point, your oil will spit quite considerably, so be sure to have your pan lid ready. Not to cover the peppers, as that will only trap the steam, but to shield yourself as you jiggle the pan and coat them in your flavoured oil.

After two to three minutes, things should have calmed down somewhat, making it safe to go in and flip the chillies with a spatula or wooden spoon. By which point their undersides should be darkening and blistered.

Continue cooking them the same way on the other side and then serve onto a plate, lined with kitchen roll to absorb any excess oil.

Finally, crack over several turns of The Chilli Project‘s 💰Fatalii Chilli Salt grinder💰, in order to cover the lot in a sensible amount of salt. Then do the same again. And again.

This is a bar snack, intended to be salty, so you really do want to use more than you first think. And it also helps us to get the full effect of that mellow, yet citrussy fatalii. Its lemon-like overtones bringing out a subtle fruitiness in the padrons, themselves, and turning almost zesty when they hit the coriander. Which, in turn, provides a strong sense of indian spices and a bold, smoky finish, to complement the earthy mustard oil and further enhance the nuttier side of the fried chillies.

They may be simple and they may not look like much but the end results of this recipe are a beautiful balance of spanish, indian and african flavours which truly left me speechless, when I first cooked them.

All given a low

heat, in the back of my mouth, by The Chilli Project‘s salt. Rendering the rare

hotter ones much less of a shock than usual.

I made these again the very next night and I mean it when I say that they are now, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite way to eat these peppers. The results of this recipe were utterly astounding!

So go grab some of The Chilli Project‘s 💰Fatalii Chilli Salt💰 and give it a try for yourself. Or at least check out the two peppers invloved.