African Hot Chilli Sauce
If you love spicy foods, chilli sauces have to be your
best buddy with your occasional meet-ups with snacks. Frankly speaking I am
just the same. I can’t live without spicy foods. Whenever I see green chillies
something happens within me and I just can’t stop myself from chopping up,
until I realize that it had already gone too far.
Whenever I ate phuchkas I asked the puchkawala to add
some chilli paste and chopped green chillies. For churmur it was the same. For
jhalmiri, alukabli, ghughni....everywhere I just had only one demand...please
make it hot. Add some more chillies please. In the end, they used to give me a
spoonful to taste, that whether I required more chillies or not. J
Eating out in Abidjan is thankfully the same for me
because of their hot pepper sauce that they serve with the food. I love love
love it. They go with almost anything. Chicken, crepe, brochettes, braise,
stew, rice and even with savoury food items like alocco (deep fried ripe
bananas). The more I was tasting the sauce the more I was becoming eager to
have a jar full of that sauce ready in my fridge. But apart from the fiery red
colour and the tongue burning hotness there was something different in that
sauce. Something that I could not predict...nor I could compare the smell with
any known flavouring spices.
So I asked my maid that whether she knows about this
sauce or not...and she said, “I will make for you madam!!” It was really very
very generous of her. She told me that the smell comes from the prawn powder...and
it’s a very local thing. People use sundried shrimps to make this powder and
they are available in loose sachets. You just need a little tea spoon amount of
the powder and that makes all the difference. Later I bought the prawn paste
also...and yes, you can use the prawn paste in place of the powder. The smell will
be more or less similar. The only difference is that the prawn powder has a
rustic smoky smell in it, which you cannot find in that paste. But it’s totally
okay I think.
African Hot Chilli Sauce
Makes 150ml of thick sauce
Ingredients:
1 medium tomato (you can use 2 tomatoes if you don't want that much heat)
1 medium onion
12-15 green / red onions (Reduce / increase according t your heat tolerance. I have used 7-10 African
chillies. African chillies are 10 times hotter than Indian chillies)
Salt
1 chicken stock cube (eliminate if you can’t find it)
2 tsp dry prawn powder (In case of unavailability
use Prawn Paste, this is easily available in the Asian part of any super
market.)
3-4 tbsp white oil (We need oil in large quantity since
the sauce is going to be stored)
Method:
Fill half of a small saucepan with water. Put it on low
flame and let it come to a boil.
Peel and halve the onion.
When the water comes to a boil put the whole tomato, halved
onion and the whole chillies into the boiling water.
Put the flame on low and simmer for 10 minutes. Within
this time, the skin of the tomato will loosen up and the onion and chillies
will start to become soggy.
Fish the tomato, chillies and onion out of the water.
Put them in a blender and blend until smooth.
Throw away the water from the saucepan and put 2 tbsp of
oil in place of that.
Heat the oil and then pour the prepared onion and tomato
mixture.
Add in salt, chicken stalk cube and prawn powder.
Give a good stir to incorporate everything and simmer for
more 7-10 minutes, or until the oil starts to separate.
Transfer the sauce into a bowl and let it come to room
temperature.
Once it cools down, store in an airtight container and
put inside the fridge.
The sauce will stay good for 2 months.
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