Chilli Oil

If you love flavourful food this is a great option for most Italian and Asian dishes and some curries too.



Preparation Time: 10 minutes (2 days to stand)
Cooking Time: No cooking required
Makes: 1 bottle

Ingredients
1 oil bottle- make sure you get one with a good pouring nozzle, not one that will drip everywhere. I prefer clear bottles because then you can see the chillies inside.
4-8 mild red chillies (depending on the size of your bottle- for the bottle in the picture I used 5 average-sized chillies)
Good quality olive oil- I buy 4litre tins of oil so I can top up when I need to without a clash of tastes.

Method




1) The smaller your chilli chunks are, the larger amount of surface area is exposed to the oil, and the more concentrated the flavour will be.

2) The oil will get stronger over time- I top it up when it gets to about halfway empty (or halfway full if you're an optimist!) so the flavour is more or less consistent.

3) Try not to let the oil get so low that the chillies are exposed to air. They will get mouldy really quickly and trying to clean the inside of an oily bottle is a task best left to the imagination.

4) Make sure the bottle is clean before you put any ingredients into it! I usually run hot water into it a few times and through the nozzle also to make sure that any dust gets moved along.

5) You don't have to change the chillies every time you change the oil, but I do it periodically. It's a great job for rainy weather.

6) Don't worry if the oil gets a little cloudy- that's totally normal and it doesn't mean that the chillies are going bad.



Categories
#sauces
#chili
#spicy
#flavoured_oils


%recipeyum