Pink Pickles

Hey folks, it’s tuesday again and, today, I feel like trying something new. A different kind of product than anything that I’ve brought you before:

These are Chilli Bobs’ pickled onions, made with chilli and pink peppercorns. And labelled in pink and purple, to match.

Their kilner jar, alone, is quite distinctive. Yet so, too, is the pepper and I’ve previously found that those little pink peppercorns pair wonderfully with spicy food. Though I’d never have thought of using them in a setting like this.

Chilli Bobs’ pickled onions are an extremely creative product and there’s still at least one more surprise, hidden within. So let’s have a look, shall we?

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Scotch Bhajis

Alright, everyone, I’ve been working on this silly little recipe for quite a while now and I’m finally able to show it to you:

My take on the onion bhaji “scotch eggs” that I used to grab from local food markets, before the world got plunged into chaos by this pandemic. An indian classic on the outside, yet oh so gooey and british within:

Delicious with any number of different chutneys, tamarind sauces and green chilli products. Or simply dripping with its own yolk.

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A Keswick Curry

This week, everyone, I’d like to bring back a style of product that we haven’t seen in a long while: An exclusively cooking sauce.

An item type that I don’t often use in my daily life and, when I do, it’s usually just to amp up a left over stew. So, while I found Mahi’s three marinades pleasant enough, it takes a lot for me to actually go out and buy such a product. Something a little bit more exciting, like Mr. Vikki’s Keswick Market Curry Sauce.

A unique “curry sauce concentrate” which won me over way back when I was visiting Brighton Fiery Food Fest and checking out the stall of my favourite banana habanero chutney maker.

His freshly prepared sample was a stunningly flavourful, rich yet mild, dish. But will it still hold up, now that I’m making it at home?

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Back with Beef

Hello again everyone, I hope that you’re enjoying your extra day this leap year.

Me? I’m making good use of it with a later than usual recipe post, on the 29th of february. Because it just so happens that, this year, it’s a saturday.

And what kind of recipe do I intend to show you this month? Why, something simple, mexican and a staple to my home cooking, in order to contrast with last month’s second-hand japanese recipe.

Today, I’m making enchiladas again but, unlike the previous batch, I’m not making them bean-based, for my family, or using someone else’s salsa. This recipe is all mine!

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Brothers’ Return

Hey there fiery food fans, this week, I’d like to take a more thorough look at a couple of sauces that I’ve already mentioned. A pair from Bauce Brothers’ Hot 100 list:

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If you haven’t seen that list, go give it and my reaction post a look. Then come back here to read my full thoughts on Glenroy’s Bunkum Bay Hot Sauce and Hot Face’s Scorpion Scorcher.

Two sauces without much other connection.

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Joker Ramen

Hey folks, it’s recipe time again but, this month, I’m doing something that I haven’t done in a while – Reviewing someone else’s recipe.

You see, as I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I’ve had plans for ramen for quite a while. Yet my dreams of fiery tonkotsu were scuppered at the very start.

As it turns out, that milky-looking pork bone broth comes not just from making your own stock but from boiling the hell out of it for hours and hours on end. From getting every single ounce of fat and flavour out of the meat, which neither you, nor I, are likely to have the time for.

So I was all set to move on and make something else. Until I saw this:

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A dark bowl of coffee curry ramen made by Pixel Tea, as part of his “Gourmet Smash Ultimate” series of Super Smash Bros. inspired dishes.

It caught my attention with its theming – Derived from the favourite food and drink pairing of Persona 5’s protagonist – but also provided a fresh spin on japanese noodle stew and just enough spice that I could make it a feature.

In fact, Pixel’s overview alone was enough to sell me on this one. But the fact that his dish makes use of a custom spice blend, rather than a custom stock, is nothing short of a godsend.

It doesn’t make this a quick meal but it still cuts down the cooking time considerably. From most of a day to around two hours, all prep included.

So let’s see how it works out, shall we?

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Seasonal Chutney

Welcome to december, everyone – The real month of christmas content but also the last week of it on my blog, since there’s no point in me making recommendations if I can’t be sure that they’ll reach you in time.

Today is definitely a seasonal review, though, and it marks the return of Holly and the Ivy, who you’ve seen before under their other name as The Mini Jar Company. Before I try out their little freebie, though, I want to give you a bit of backstory.

I dislike brussel sprouts. I don’t find them bitter so, just as with coriander, I’m not genetically inclined to hate them. I just do. The same way that many kids apparently hate broccoli.

After all, all it takes sometimes is a single bad experience to put you off a food for life. And let me tell you, getting your packed lunch wrecked by schoolyard bullies, only to have it replaced with an almost indeterminable green mush, is definitely a bad experience. A terrible introduction to the traditional veg of the season.

So it’s entirely possible that I’m going to hate today’s product through no fault of its own but, when Holly and the Ivy asked if I wanted to try their Red Onion, Sprout & Naga Chilli Chutney, I realised that I haven’t actually given the vegetable a fair shot in my adult life.

And, since 📽️ Mushemi Fire 📽️ and Cowley’s Fine Food have both proven that I can like even mushrooms if they’re prepared right, I said “yes”. I decided to give their christmas special a go.

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Red Hot Velvet Rings

Hey fiery food fans. Today’s recipe has a bit of a misleading title.

I’m calling this post “Red Hot Velvet Rings” but the end result isn’t stunningly hot. Or even red in appearance.

What it is is a hotter, more savoury take on red velvet onion rings – An old craze that I still find baffling.

But just because coating onion rings in something as sweet as actual cake batter seems strange to me doesn’t stop the thought of a smooth, milky, fluffy, cake-like texture surrounding a ring with a little bit of bite left from making me salivate.

The feel of cake-battered onion rings was so tempting I just had to try it and, with the shade produced by deep frying red food colouring already making the originals look spicy, I knew it had to be a blog recipe.

So I went out and bought myself some sriracha to experiment.

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Cowley’s Fine Foods

Greetings, spice lovers, would you believe that I have yet another company to show you freebies from?

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Cowley’s Fine Food, makers of all forms of jerky, fruit leathers and dried mushrooms, alongside other traditional products like marzipan and truffles.

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A Maximum of Onions

Hello again spice lovers and welcome back to my end of the month recipe posts. Today we’re trying our hands at something a little less dessert-based again. Dōpiaza relish.

For those who aren’t familiar with the curry, dōpiaza is a red-coloured indian dish with all the flavours that entails but also onions. Lots of onions.

In fact, the name literally means “two onions”, referring to the inclusion of both fried and boiled ones.

Many restaurants over the years have screwed up this translation though. Rather than telling their customers that the dish has two types of onion or twice as much as any other curry, indian restaurants will often mark it down as a “maximum” amount of the vegetable. And that just isn’t true.

But what happens when we use an actual maximum of onions? I’ve wanted an answer to this for a long time and recently decided to find out.

I must warn you though, this recipe is simple but slow. It is worth in the end but absolutely not for the impatient.

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