I grew and dried a LOT of hot peppers. I wanted to use all of them up in some Christmas gifts. I found a recipe for Chili oil online (the woks of life) and then there was a recipe for Chiu chow sauce. I am not sure which one I like better.

The chili oil recquired steeping spices in hot oil - Sichuan pepper, cinnamon stick, star anise and bay leaves. I have never flavored oils before but will definitely try it again. The oil was lovely fragrant delicious before I added the peppers. In a bid to moderate the heat I deseeded a lot of peppers and used less than the recipe called for - I am glad I did. The result has bite but not too much. I am dribbling a bit of it on everything.

On the same site I found a recipe for Chiu Chow sauce. I am not familiar with this sauce - but it called for a TON of garlic and soy sauce - all good to me. As a child in culinarily lacking Maine - occasional trips to a Chinese grocery in Bangor would net sticky little bottles of mysterious condiment pastes that we would add in tiny amounts to our ubiquitous brown rice. This recipe reminded me of our mystery condiments. It is delicious garlicky spicy salty smoky sweet. My step sister and her husband loves it - she is on a ramen kick. My step dad found it way too hot.

The remainder of my dried hot peppers got mixed with lime powder and salt in a not quite right facsimile of Tajin - that my former Mexican co-workers sprinkled on mangoes carrots cukes and a variety of other fruits and veggies. Yummy.

And Christmas is over. Ice storm last night - seed catalogues are here. Making next years seed lists today.

Happy New Year!