My wife decided to surprise me one cold night with a hot cocktail.  My initial impressions were spiciness, warmth, a hint of citrus, and overall very unique and nice.  After guessing cointreau as one of the ingredients, I gave up.  Just couldn't get the rest.  I was convinced there was tea but she said no.

As it turns out, it was cointreau and chilli cordial (which we had got quite a few years ago at Murray Breweries in Beechworth) and hot water .


It was certainly a delight.  Can't wait to have more.

Not exactly one of my recipes but since it originated from the same household, I'm going to claim it as mine and share it here!!

We were given these chillies to us from my wife's aunt who has a variety of herbs, vegies and fruit in her garden.  Every time we visit, it is like harvest time for us.  It is a real delight to receive home-grown organic produce.

With the freezer overflowing, I thought I had better get on to using them and decided to make some chilli pastes.  The first was a harissa paste.

I got the Harissa Paste recipe from one of my favourite food blogs - 3 Hungry Tummies. The only difference is I used fresh birds eye chillies instead of dried chillies.  The bird eye chillies were HOT!

Will post an update when I use the harissa.

This is my own recipe.  Traditional you would use dried chillies for this type of chilli paste but again, I used fresh chillies.

Recipe


Ingredients:

300g bell pepper chillies

10 cloves garlic chopped
5 large shallots (asian)
50ml water
1 tbsp belacan (shrimp paste)
oil

Method:

Blend all chillies, garlic and shallots into a fine paste.  Heat oil on medium heat and fry the blended paste until fragrant.  Still constantly, otherwise it will splatter.  Cook for 30-45 minutes.

Halfway through cooking, put in belacan and continue stirring until dissolved.  Salt to taste.  Cool and bottle.  Will keep up to 2 weeks in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer.

Use in stir fries or as an accompaniment to fried noodles, fried rice etc.