Our Favourite Chilli Farm Recipes
Forum Recipes
As well as the recipes on this page, there are more recipes in our online Recipe Forum.Mango Salsa
This is the best dip! Everyone will come back for more and want to know what it is!!An ideal combination of sweet, exotic mango with the exciting bite of chilli!
1 mango, diced
1 spring onion, sliced thinly
1 teaspoon fresh red chillies, finely chopped (Serrano if available).
(You could also use rehydrated chillies - such as Aji Amarillo).
Juice of ½ a lime
1 small bunch coriander, chopped
Mix ingredients in a bowl and allow mixture to stand before serving.
Tomato salsa
A classic tomato salsa2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 large tomatoes, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon chopped green chillies (Jalapeno or Serrano if available - or rehydrated Aji Amarillo)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small bunch fresh coriander, finely chopped
Mix ingredients in a bowl and chill before serving.
Guacamole
If you have lots of other hot dips, you can miss out the chillies in this one and use it as a cooling dip.2 ripe avocados, mashed with a fork
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped (Serrano chillies or rehydrated Aji Amarillo (optional)
Mix everything together, to stop it going brown squeeze lime juice over the top. Its best to eat this straight away, if you cant cover with cling film to preserve the colour.!
Red Onion Salsa
2 red onions, thinly sliced
4 to 5 tbsps freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
1 small bunch coriander
1 tsp fresh chillies (Cherry Bomb is best but go for Barkers Hot for more heat - or rehydrated Aji Amarillo)
5 to 6 tbsps olive oil
salt (optional)
Mix everything together and let stand for 10 mins before serving.
Thai Fish Cakes
8oz fish fillet, mashed (cod or similar white fish)
1 onion finely chopped
1 stick lemon grass
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 Thai Hot chilli, chopped (or dried Piri Piri )
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 egg
2 tbsp corn flour
pinch of sugar
oil for deep frying
Mix all ingredients together and form into small fish cakes. Deep fry for about 10 mins until golden. Drain and serve with Thai cucumber sauce (see below).
Thai Cucumber Sauce
½ cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
2oz sugar
250 ml boiling water
120 ml wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 red chillies, finely chopped (Thai Hot or Serrano does nicely, or dried Piri-Piri) Use less if you don't want to much heat.
Arrange the cucumber slices in a bowl. Dissolve the sugar in the water. Mix in the wine vinegar, salt, shallots and chillies. Pour over the cucumber, cover and chill.
Pimientos de Padrón
This is a very simple dish! The Padrón pepper, from the town of Padrón in the Galicia region of Spain, is usually picked early before reaching its full size and certainly before it turns red. Padrón peppers fried in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt is becoming one of the most popular tapas throughout Spain.8 to 10 Pimientos de Padrón - with stems
Olive Oil (or Rapeseed Chilli Oil )
Sea Salt
Take a pan and pour enough oil to generously cover the bottom of the frying pan.
Turn the heat up on the burner.
When the olive oil starts to sizzle, throw the peppers in whole.
Fry and turn until the peppers have small white blisters all over.
Sprinkle with coarse salt and serve.
Hold the pepper by the stem and BITE. Enjoy!
Roast Tomato Sauce
This recipe makes a great ingredient for many Mexican dishes (such as Beans in Mole) and the roasted tomatoes (leaving out the onion) make a great snack on their own, on toast, with pasta or in a salad.1kg tomatoes, halved
Rapeseed Chilli Oil
2 Garlic cloved, peeled and sliced
250g Onions
Heat the oven to 200c/gas 6/fan over 180c. Place the tomatoes cut-side up in a roasting tray that has been lined with foil. Push the garlic slices into the tomatoes. Drizzle with honey, then oil, season with salt and pepper. Cook for an hour until they are soft and slightly blackened. Left to cool, they make a great snack.
Making the sauce Cool and place in a food processor to make a chunky puree.The onion can be cooked while the tomatoes are baking: puts some rapeseed oil in a frying pan and fry the onions until soft and golden. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes until nice and thick. Stir often and season to taste.
Basic Beans
Beans form a major part of the daily diet in Mexico and, together with corn, provide protein. Once cooked, these easy-beans can be served with warm tortillas, bread or rice or added to a number of recipes such as the Beans in Mole recipe.500g beans (black-eyed, kidney, haricot or pinto).
200g onions, peeled and finely sliced.
3 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
4 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil (or Rapeseed Chilli Oil to spice them up).
If you are using dried beans, wash them in a colander, place in a large saucepan with the onion, garlic and bay leaf, add enough water to cover by 10cm and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours, preferably 3 or 4, until tender. Check now and then to make sure they don’t dry out and are still covered with water. Add some salt and pepper and cook for another 20 minutes. Strain and add oil just before serving.
When using tinned beans, follow steps above, but use a lot less water to start with.
Red Mole Paste
75g of dried Ancho Mulato or Ancho Poblano pods
30g of dried Guajillo pods
500g of Roast Tomato Sauce (see recipe page)
1 tbsp dried oregano
30g dark tahini
30g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids or higher)
1 tbsp honey
Roast and rehydrate the chillies (see our ‘How to use dried chillies’ guide). Place the rehydrated/de-stemed/de-seeded chillies into a blender or food processor, add about 100ml of the unabsorbed soaking water and process to a thick, smooth sauce. Strain through a medium sieve to remove the bits of tuff skin.
Bring the tomato sauce to the boil in a large frying pan, add the chilli sauce and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Stir in the oregano, tahini, chocolate, honey and some salt and pepper, and simmer for a further 10 minutes.
This paste can then be used as a base for other recipes such as the ‘Beans in Mole’ and ‘Chicken and Mole Enchiladas’.
Beans in Mole
One portion of the Red Mole Paste recipe,
One portion of Basic Beans,
Mix together, add some water (depending on how dry the mixture is) bring to the boil, then turn the heat right down and cook for about 30 minutes until the sauce is thick and the beans are well coated.
Check the seasoning and perhaps add a little honey the idea is a mellow sauce rather than a sweet one.
Chicken and Mole Enchiladas
A great dish to put together from left-over chicken from a roast and some frozen mole.A portion of Mole sauce (e.g. Red Mole Paste recipe)
Corn Tortillas
Cooked, shredded chicken
Cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
Sour Cream or Greek-style plain yogurt
Fresh Coriander leaves, chopped
White onion, peeled and finely sliced
Heat the Mole sauce in a frying pan big enough for the tortilla. Using tongs, dip each tortillas into the sauce to coat both sides, transfer to a baking dish, fill with chicken and fold/roll up. Add all the tortillas like this to fill the backing dish. Pour remaining sauce over the tortillas and wrap the dish in foil.
Heat the oven to 200c/Gas 6/fan oven 180c and bake for 15 minutes make sure they are piping hot. Remove the foil, drizzle with sour cream or yoghurt and sprinkle plenty of cheese, coriander and sliced onion, and serve.
As a vegetarian alternative, fill the tortillas with tinned, drained and rinsed kidney beans mixed with some of the mole sauce.
Piri-Piri Marinade
The marinade can be made 2 to 3 days before using - see Piri-Piri Chicken recipe.200ml lemon juice
200ml rapeseed oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
10 dried Piri Piri , de-stalked and crushed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt.
Wisk the ingredients together in a bowl.
This marinade can be used to make Piri-Piri chicken, or cooked for 10 minutes and brushed onto hot corn on the cob, drizzled over grilled chicken, or used as a dunking sauce for bread.
Piri-Piri Chicken
You can use chicken pieces or a spatchcocked chicken with this recipe.Ingredients:
Chicken - enough for guests
Piri-Piri Marinade - about 250ml per chicken.
butter - about 60g per chicken
Lemon wedges on the table
Preparation:
1. Rinse chicken and pat dry; trim off and discard excess fat. Put chicken in a large bowl. Stir piri-piri marinade, pour over chicken, and turn pieces to coat. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or up to 1 day, turning chicken occasionally
2. With tongs, lift chicken from marinade, drain well, and lay on a barbecue or medium heat on a gas grill. Cook, turning occasionally until skin is well browned and meat on the bone is no longer pink (cut to test). Brush occasionally with marinade until about 10 minutes before chicken is done. As pieces are done, transfer to a platter and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.
3. Pour remaining marinade into a to pan over medium-low heat. Stirring occasionally bring mixture to a simmer. Add butter and stir until melted; turn heat to low and stir occasionally until ready to serve. Pour sauce into a small bowl or pitcher.
4. Garnish chicken with lemon wedges and serve with sauce.
Chilli Oil
Chilli Oil is a great addition to table condiments, and easy to make. We recommend using dried chillies (you can use fresh as well, but chilli oil made with fresh chillies should only be kept for a couple of weeks and stored in the fridge). The heat from dried chillies will take a few weeks to build up in the oil. Experiment with different chillies for heat and flavour – maybe a mix of a few different chilli species:Ingredients:
Three dried Habaneros
Three dried Aji
Three dried Piri-Piri
Preparation:
De-stalk the chillies, crush into flakes (pestle and mortar, coffee grinder or scissors).
Lightly roast the flakes in a frying pan – careful not to burn them.
Add flakes to 1Ltr of oil. If you are using the oil for cooking, sunflower or groundnut works well, for the table, Olive or Rapeseed oil.
Leave oil for a few weeks before testing. Leave longer if you want more heat.
You can then either top-up the oil as you use it, or strain-out the flakes to hold the oil at the same heat level.
Smokey Bean Soup
Ingredients:
2 tins of Kidney beans, rinsed
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 portion of 'Roast Tomato Sauce' (see recipe on this page)
1 or 2 whole dried Chipotle, de-stalked
2 whole Pasilla (or Anch or Mulato), de-stalked.
200g strong cheddar cheese
Preparation:
1. Soak the Chipotle for 30 minutes in slightly-cooled boiled water in a small dish (just enough water to cover).
2. De-stalk and rehydrate the Pasilla, Anch or Mulato in the same way.
3. Add all ingredients except the cheese to a pan on a low heat.
4. Add some of the water used to rehydrate the chillie and Cook on a simmer for 10 minutes
5. Liquidise the soup and stran through a medium sieve.
6. Return to the saucepan to reheat, add the cheese and serve when melted and back to a simmer.