I have finally taken the lemon drop chillies out of the bucket they were sitting so prettily in and am converting them to chilli sauce.

Half are sitting fermenting on the kitchen counter and the rest I made into chilli sauce yesterday

It was quite an epic heat ride.

I chopped the stalks from the lemon drop chillies, peeled red onion and garlic and put them into a saucepan with enough water to cover them, bought them to the boil then simmered for fifteen minutes.

After draining them I buzzed them in the food processor until they were smooth. I made the mistake of taking a good sniff of the salsa to enjoy the aroma – it blew me across the room.

The initial tasting was soooo hot that realistically not many people were going to eat it. I added a mango hoping it would stretch the heat but it didn’t seem to have much effect. I then sieved the sauce in the hope that removing the seeds would do the trick.

Wooo, still extremely hot !

I then incrementally added in

light muscovado sugar ,

honey,

white balsamic vinegar

another mango

and we finally seemed to be smoothing out the edges.

Phew I was getting worried!

It’s a chilli sauce to use with caution but perfect for chilli heads – like good habanero sauce and it’s a fab colour!

I’m not sure what to do with the fermenting chillies …. any ideas?