by Ben Deutsch

Created on: March 20, 2007   Last Updated: May 04, 2007

Here's a recipe I found in an old notebook. I devised this as a condiment for a festival cafe I was working at a couple of years ago. This is strictly for spice lovers, but you can always tone it down by decreasing the number of chilies and increasing the amount of fresh tomatoes or tomato puree. The beauty of the recipe is that it requires no cooking, just chopping and mixing.

TIP: You're going to be chopping a lot of chilies, so it's a good idea to give your hands a thin coating of vegetable oil before you start, so that the chili doesn't get absorbed into the skin and can be easily washed off at the end. Also make sure that you don't scratch your nose or rub your eyes while you're in the middle of making this.

About half the total volume of your sauce is going to be chili peppers - in my note book I said to use 23 peppers, but bear in mind that was for a cafe, so adapt the quantities to suit your needs.

Remove the stalks from the chili peppers, then slice the peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds. Once you've discarded the seeds and stalks, chop the peppers very finely.

Crush or finely chop plenty of fresh garlic - the notebook says 2 full heads of garlic, but again that's cafe quantities. I think the best way to deal with garlic is to remove the dry peel, then crush the bulb with the flat side of a large kitchen knife. Of course you can use those little garlic crushers they sell in kitchen shop, but I don't like them because they're so awkward to clean.

Put the chopped chili peppers and garlic in a mixing bowl and add the juice from two lemons (you've got the point about quantities now, haven't you?)

Chop 5 large tomatoes into small chunks and add them to the mix. Stir everything up.

Chop up a small handful of fresh coriander and add that to the mix.

Add just enough tomato puree to make the mix into an easily spoonable sauce. (I've deliberately kept this quantity vague, since people have very different ideas what consistency a sauce or salsa should have).

Give everything one last good stir together.

In my notebook, the last step of the recipe is "go for a long sauna". Of course that's one of the benefits of cooking at a festival. You'll probably have to content yourself with washing that protective oil off your hands and maybe having a bath or shower.

You could experiment with adding all kinds of different ingredients to the basic mix above - possibilities In listed in my notebook included tequila, mashed bananas, crushed ice (obviously you'd have to do that one just before serving), cocoa powder (chili and chocolate go great together) and red onions.

Enjoy.

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