4 Chilli Condiments You Need in the Storecupboard

I love some spicy heat in my food so always have these four chilli condiments in stock – they each add a different nuance (or, if you like, more than a nuance!) to a dish.

Before I get started I’d just like to say that this is not a promotional post, I am not getting paid or receiving any benefit from mentioning or showing specific products. With maybe (and maybe not) the exception of Patak’s Chilli Pickle, they are all just examples of the yummy condiments available. Shop around – could be fun!

Hot Sauce

This is, of course, a biggie in the Caribbean where it is so popular that it is placed on restaurant tables alongside the salt, pepper and OFF (this can be confusing to those unfamiliar with the last product – it is mosquito repellent!).  

My advice when choosing a hot sauce would be something straightforward with no smoky, garlicky or any other additional flavour.  That way it will go with all sorts of things including sweet dishes.

Sweet ideas for Hot Sauce

~ Tentatively add a drip or two to fruit salad, particularly Tropical Fruit Salad.
~ Add a little to hot chocolate and make like a Mexican!
~ Enhance a Bloody Mary.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

This goes well with Asian dishes and seafood but with lots of other things too.

Sautéed Shrimp in Chilli & Lime Butter Sauce

This works very well for other fish and seafood too!

Per person …

a goodly handful of shelled raw shrimp or prawns
a generous knob of butter
sweet chilli sauce to taste
½ a lime or so

~   Melt the butter, add the shrimp and cook tossing or stirring till pink.
~   Drizzle over a little less sweet chilli sauce than you think you would like.
~   Squeeze over the lime juice.
~   Taste and adjust seasoning adding more chilli sauce as you think fit. That’s it. 

You should end up with your crustaceans bathed a sweet, hot, tangy buttery sauce.

I have made a delicous and very cheaty Bulgogi (aka Korean Fire Meat) using sweet chilli sauce and a few other ingredients. Do read about lovely Bulgogi here, whether you make the authentic recipe or my cheat they are both delicious.

And see here for Salmon, Chilli & Sweet Potato Cakes.

More ideas for Sweet Chilli Sauce

~   Sometimes a tomato dish will require a little sweetness and sweet chilli sauce adds this and a little spice perfectly.
~ Similarly if your chilli con carne is lacking something add this.
~ These Chinese Spring Onion Pancakes (Tsung yu Ping) are great with a dash of sweet chilli sauce.
~ Use as a dip for crisps, chips, vegetables, etc.

Patak’s Chilli Pickle

Powerful stuff – use abstemiously, tasting as you go.

I know this is a bit specific, and that there are probably other good chill pickles out there, but this Patak’s Chilli Pickle is so deliciously useful that when I first moved to the West Indies, not being able to get it, I convinced a company there to import the stuff!

I find the “sludge” (sorry Patak’s) of oil and spices surrounding the pieces of chilli more useful in cooking than the whole pieces of chilli so, when I open a new jar, I purée the lot! 

This goes into a good deal of my cooking and I have sometimes been unfairly complimented (compliments which I gracefully accepted) on the complexity of a dish, which complexity I owe entirely to Patak’s.  One of my popular dishes was

Mahi Mahi baked in a Banana Leaf with Tomato, Coconut & Green Chilli

Here’s the recipe – the fish is wrapped in a banana leaf but foil works well too and doesn’t change the favour

Chicken and Green Chilli Fritters

Per person …

40g bread soaked in cold water or, even better, cold chicken stock
75g finely chopped cooked chicken
½ teaspoon chilli pickle sludge
1 heaped teaspoon mayonnaise
olive oil for frying

~   When the bread is completely soaked, 5-10 minutes, use your hands to squeeze it out as dryly as possible. 
~   Mix the squozen bread with the rest of the ingredients.
~   Taste and season but, chilli pickle being so ace, I doubt it needs anything else.
~   Form into 2 cakes and flatten to little rounds.
~   Shallow fry in a little olive oil till crisp on both sides.

Lovely with a little salad and crunchy cashews!

More ideas for Chilli Pickle

~ Add to cheese on toast, mayonnaise, seafood salads, chicken dishes, mashed potatoes and potato cakes, etc. but always abstemiously!
~ A little of the thick coconut milk from the top of a can together with a soupçon of chilli pickle sludge and a squeeze of lemon or lime makes a super sauce for scallops and other shellfish.

Chipotle Paste

Chipotle peppers are smoke-dried ripe jalapeño chillies and I love their taste so much I have already written a whole post on chipotle paste! I urge you to have a look – lots of ideas for enjoying this wonderful smoky heat!

Use any of these Chilli Condiments to …

~   Stir into mayonnaise or vinaigrette.
~ Enhance tomato ketchup and other bought in sauces.
~ Make chilli butter.
~ Spice up pasta sauces.
~   Add to fishcakes, fish salads and fish dishes in general.
~   Swirl through softened cream cheese for a tasty dip.
~ Add a dash to risotto.
~ Mix into hummus and other bean dips.
~ Cheese on toast and grilled cheese sandwiches can benefit from a bit of chilli heat.
~   Add to stir fries.
~   Add a little to homemade fritters, as appropriate.
~ Add a little to the meat when making homemade burgers.

PS. I realise that there are many, many chilli condiments available, in fact see this list of 30 different chilli sauces compiled by The Guardian, but I think with these four chilli condiments in your pantry you should be pretty well set.

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