Whenever I see a chili, I will remember one of the most painful moments (literally) of my life. Yet, the unlucky history with the chilis wouldn’t scare me away – when our neighbour offered me a couple of young chili plants this spring, I would gladly accept them. The plants gave me quite a few bunches of beautiful chilis and we tried to eat them fresh as many as possible. Which of course wasn’t possible, so I dried a bunch of them in order to use them in hearty winter stews. I still had a handful of fresh ones left and decided to pickle them.

The problem we usually encounter with is usually the sudden abundance – this summer we found ourselves overloaded with cucumbers and green beans, well, and chilis. I’ve been wanting to pickle them for quite a while now, and after another kind neighbour provided me with a promising recipe (the things you learn while working in the garden!) I decided to give it a go.

The recipe: PICKLED CHILI PEPPERS

a bunch of chilis, as many as you can fit in a 1 litre jar
vinegar (I used the apple one) and water in proportion 1:2 or adjusting to the strenght of vinegar you use
couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
grains of pepper
couple of lovage/celery leaves
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of blond cane sugar
2 bay leaves

1. Boil water with vinegar and the rest of ingredients (olive oil, grains of pepper, lovage leaf, salt, sugar and bay leaf), then add the chilis and simmer for 5 minutes or so.
2. Place into a sterilized jar, seal it and pasteurize it in oven for another 5 minutes or so (80 degrees Celsius).
3. Let cool at room temperature and store in the fridge.

Add the chilis and simmer for couple of minutes

Pasteurize the jar of chilis in the oven

The rest of the chilis we didn’t manage to eat up, ended up drying to use them in winter. On the photos you can see how they change colours while drying.

Chilis drying

Note: I don’t dry chilis hanging on the window door handle, I’ve placed them here just to take a photo. I keep them hanging from the ceiling, in a shady and cool room.