If you think pickling chilies ends at vinegar, black peppercorns and salt, think again. This paste becomes rich and mind-numbingly pungent from cilantro, garlic, and lime, and is lightened up by carrot. You’re supposed to use green papaya and bitter melon, but I like baby steps, and I like not buying $7 organic papayas (regular, giant, GMO papayas are all sprayed with chemicals I don’t want to think about and usually fairly bland. Naturally great for digestion, but now that the relatively tiny organic ones are available I can’t get away with saying, “Well, there’s no other choice.” Thus I will buy far fewer papayas these days).
So I made this recipe without the bitter melon and papaya, and doubled the amount of chilies (I used all cayennes and no habaneros, scotch bonnets, or pimentos), and blended everything up together. The nice part is you just toss it all in the blender or food processor and end up with a fairly chunky sauce. You adjust the seasonings to taste, and then either store the paste directly in the fridge in jars or fill a bunch of sterilized jars (you should sterilize the fridge-bound chili jars too) and then give them a 10-minute hot water bath. The vinegar-chili ratio is very high, so the processed chilies should be fine (shelf-stable). If I’m wrong on that let me know.
I made 2 completely raw chili pastes (since the paste doesn’t get cooked), and 8 cooked ones. I have one regular and one extra-spicy raw paste and a couple of regular processed and a bunch more extra-spicy processed jars of paste. So is it the ultimate Caribbean chili paste? Well, probably not with all my changes to the recipe, but it’s pretty darn good. If you want to purchase a 100% raw chili paste or canned paste, leave a comment here and we’ll work it out. I’m selling small jars for $3.50. You’re only ever going to use a teaspoon at a time, so it’s a steal.
Here’s a link to the original recipe in case you find yourself with many chilies to use, as I did. Or just blend the following adjusted recipe ingredients below and store in a clean jar in the fridge for up to about a month:
40 green cayenne peppers, stems removed (you could remove the seeds, but it’s not worth the effort. It would take away some of the pure heat but leave the flavour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups apple cider, rice wine, or white vinegar (unpasteurized apple cider vinegar keeps the recipe 100% raw)
1 cup cilantro, cut into rough 1″ pieces (since you’re just blending it anyway)
6 cloves of garlic
1 whole lemon or 2 whole ripe limes, quartered, visible seeds removed
Juice of 2-4 limes (to taste. Start with two and work your way up)
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
Blend all ingredients (yes, entire quartered lemon or lime pieces). Add more vinegar if you want to make it thinner or it doesn’t blend. Add more cayennes or use other peppers if you prefer, but know that the green Lufa Farms Fresh Basket cayennes aren’t as hot as habaneros, scotch bonnets, or many other chilies available. And they’re sweeter than jalapenos.
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