Chili sauces from across the world

10 Simple Chili Pickles

Chili Pickles Mankind has been eating chilies for over 10,000 years. Domesticated in South America, they were brought to India by the Portuguese and now appear in almost all Indian curries. A variety of chilies are pickled across India. Small Tanjore chilies, plump Andhra chilies, Long thin green / red chilies, long plump chilies, dry red chilies – all can be pickled. There are over 3000 varieties of chilies across the world, and all of them can be used in the pickles listed here. The logic is simple. Chilies are slit / chopped / crushed / blended and mixed with a variety of spice powders & salt. They are then steeped in an acid (lemon juice / vinegar / tamarind pulp / yogurt) and left in sun for a few days. The acid prevents spoilage and sunning the pickle kills microorganisms. So all these pickles last easily for months and last much longer refrigerated. Feel free to change the quantity of spice powders / salt to suit your taste. Tips: 1. Water kills pickles. Ensure chilies are wiped dry before pickling. 2. Keep bottles and spoons completely dry. 3. A tiny pinch of citric acid / sodium benzoate can be mixed with the pickle to make it long much longer. 4. Refrigerating pickles to make them last much longer.

1001 Easy Vegan Chili ( Spicy Bean Stew)

Replace the animal protein with plant protein in a meat based chili and you get a vegan chili.

This cookbook lists 10 different beans / lentils, which are combined with 10 flavouring agents and ten additives to create a thousand vegan chili recipes, numbered from 000 to 999.

 The base
Only a handful of beans / lentils are commonly used in chili. But we now have acces to  a huge variety of  other beans / lentils any of which can be used as a base. When in season, you can experiment with using  fresh beans / lentils. All beans can be sprouted and you can try using them in place of dry beans.  The quick cooking lentils, so popular in Indian cuisine, need no pre soaking and can be used to whip up a bowl of chili fast.  Larger beans however,  need to be soaked overnight.

 The flavouring
Cumin, onion and garlic form the basic flavouring. A couple of pinches of the mild Kashmiri chili powder can be used to lend a deep reed color to the chili. A variety of other flavouring listed in column 2 can also be used.

 The additives
A variety of vegetables as listed in column 3 can be cooked along with the beans to cook up a huge array of chili.

1001 Simple Chili ( Spicy Meat / Bean Stew)

Chili pepper was domesticated 10,000 years ago in the Americas. 500 years back, they travelled with Columbus to Spain and soon spread across the world. When eaten, capsaicinoids (a group of plant chemicals occurring in chilies) fool the brain into believing that the mouth is on fire.  The brain responds by raising heart rate, increasing sweat, and releases endorphins (the feel-good hormone), to soothe the body. This 'rush' is what makes chilies so addictive. 

Added to meat and cooked into a stew with some flavouring, it soon became a wildly popular stew - Chili con carne (literally peppers with meat). Beans were probably added later to stretch the stew and in many versions they replace meat.  With its name shortened to Chili, it is now the official dish of Texas.   

A huge variety of meats / beans can be used along with a variety of flavouring and additives as listed above. A dash of beer / wine / sour cream / vinegar / pickle juice can be mixed in before serving.

Chili can be served straight or with crackers, cooked rice, pasta, tamale, corn bread, cinnamon rolls, sandwiches or tortillas. They can also be used as a topping for hot dog, cheese & fries, corn chips or mashed potatoes. A glass of ice cold beer, cola or milk goes well with a bowl of chili. Chili can be thick, soupy or watery. They can be thickened  with masa, cornflour or crushed crackers. They age well, getting tastier with storage. The traditional recipes call for long gentle cooking over a few hours. A pressure cooker reduces the cooking time dramatically. The Indian whistling pressure cooker is probably the easiest and fastest way to cook chili. A variety of chilies can be used to cook the chili. The chilies so used can be fresh, dried, boiled or even grilled. Each variation subtly alters the taste and flavour of the stew.  

Thousands of ‘the most authentic and tastiest’ versions exist with bitter feuding over the inclusion or omission of meat / beans/ flavouring agents . This cookbook focuses on fool proof, simple chili recipes that a first time cook can cook up on the very first try.  The emphasis as always, is more on ease of preparation than on gourmet cooking.

As with most One page cookbooks, 10 different bases are combined with 10 flavouring agents and ten additives to create a thousand chili recipes, numbered from 000 to 999.

The bases

 A variety of meats / beans or both are used as a base. Meat can be ground ( available as chili grind) or chopped into bite sized cubes. Larger beans need to be soaked overnight and smaller ones can be cooked without soaking.

The flavouring

Cumin, onion and garlic form the basic flavouring. A variety of other flavouring listed in column 2 can also be used.

The additives

Most chilies do not use any vegetables (with the exception of tomato). But a variety of vegetables as listed in column 3 can be used.

Experiment and cook up your own versions !

And that's my entry for San Antonio's Chili cookoff Challenge.