Chicken, chicken, lamb

No, not my take on duck, duck, goose, but the proteins of three new and scrumptious recipes from my favourite birthday present - and new favourite cookbook.

I am in chilli heaven when I read this and the beauty of it is it's not one cuisine, so there are chilli-filled dishes from Thailand, Mexico, India, China, and many more, including the Caribbean - which is where I started my journey through the hundreds of pages of this book...

For the obligatory family dinner for my birthday this year we went to Atico Cocina - a new South Ameican and Caribbean restaurant near Victoria Park which serves Caribbean and South American tapas style dishes, delicious cocktails and is in a very cool, funky space. Check it out at http://www.atico.co.nz/restaurant-auckland.html

One of the highlights of that meal (and there were many) was the jerk chicken wings. They were spicy and cinnamony-allspicy, as they should be, and for want of a better, non-fast-food-chain term, finger lickin' good.

So when I thumbed through the cookbook for the first time, jerk chicken definitely stood out and was recipe number one to try.

At Atico Cocina one of the sides we had was fried potatoes with garlic butter and spring onions (sounds much cooler with the proper name - something Spanish - which escapes me now), so I decided to recreate those to go with the chicken.

All of these recipes serve two.

Jerk Chicken Drumsticks

• 6 chicken drumsticks
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 Tb finely chopped onion
• 1 Tb finely chopped spring onion
• 1 Tb vinegar
• 2 Tb oil
• 1 Tb lime juice
• 1 hot chilli, finely chopped (I rehydrated one of our dried habaneros to use)
• Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Cut some slits in the chicken and rub the marinade into them. Leave the chicken to marinate overnight (or for an hour if not as prepared as one should be).

Put on the barbie, or if unable due to nasty Auckland weather, brown in a frying pan (just sealing them) with a little oil, then cook in a 180°C oven for 30 minutes, basting a couple of times with the marinade that's in the oven dish.

Serve with potatoes that have been cut into small pieces and then fried in garlic butter and mixed through with chopped spring onions (yes, they are miniature spring onions, not chives). Chipotle mayo is the perfect accompaniment.

I also served the chicken topped with a little salsa of tomato, red onion, coriander and lime juice just to add some freshness.

Twas delicious - so delicious that Elliot didn't realise the chicken was slightly undercooked until the second drumstick (but as advised above, 30 minutes will see these cooked well).

Last week saw me craving a Sunday roast so the question became, what should I do with the leftover chicken on Monday night? The answer for Elliot and I is invariably quesadillas, and growing up, was always chicken fricase.

However, a quick look in my new bible and a Sichuan dish was found (however I had to substitute Sichuan peppercorns for black peppercorns and I did not cook the chicken using their method, so not quite sure it qualified anymore).

This dish is called Bon-Bon Chicken, however I did not use a "bon" - which is where the name of the dish comes from - so I guess I shall call this dish Chicken. Well, Chicken with Spicy Sesame Sauce.

This is a super easy recipe - perfect for leftovers and a nice warm winter dinner (with the warm chicken and rice and warming, spicy sauce), but still light and fresh.

(Bon-Bon) Chicken with Spicy Sesame Sauce

• 2 Tb soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 Tb finely chopped spring onion
• 1 tsp chilli oil (I just used 2 chopped red chillies and a tsp of olive oil)
• 1/2 tsp peppercorns
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• 2 Tb sesame paste (or 2 Tb peanut butter creamed with a little sesame oil - which is what I did)

Mix everything together and ideally put in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Pour over heated shredded chicken on top of a bed of rice and place slithers of cucumber around the edge.

Sprinkle some sesame seeds and chopped spring onions over the top.

So, this is my new favourite thing to eat. The sauce is divine and you could make it without the chilli component and it would still be delicious. The peanut butter/sesame combination is delicious and you could put this on top of a number of meats, but is such a great use of leftover chicken. Eat it now.

Oh, and for those wondering about the bon, the chicken should be poached and then the meat is pounded with a stick or "bon".

The third and hottest recipe of the week was the Fire Fry. It is made with lamb but I can't bring myself to call it Lamb Fire Fry as all I hear is lamb's fry.

The blurb for this recipe sucked me in straight away - "Here's one for lovers of hot, spicy food. Tender strips of lamb, marinated in spices and stir-fried with a top-dressing of chillies, really hits the hot spot".

Sold. And boy did it live up to it.

Fire Fry 

• 400g lean lamb
• 3/4 c plain yoghurt
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp hot chilli powder (I used habanero for a change)
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tb honey
• 1 Tb vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 onions, diced
• 1/2 green capsicum, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 c water
• 2 red chillies, chopped into fine strips
• 2 green chillies, chopped into fine strips
• Handful of coriander

Cut any fat from the lamb and cut into strips.

In a bowl whisk the yoghurt, cardamom, ginger, garlic, chilli powder, garam masala, salt and honey (my addition as thought it needed a touch of sweetness to cut through the salt) and a squeeze of lemon if you've got it.

Add the lamb and marinate for at least an hour.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onion (oh yeah, I had to use some red and some brown as ran out of brown) and capsicum (recipe actually just calls for 2 onions, but was out so added the half capsicum, which I would definitely do again) over a medium heat until golden brown (about 4-5 minutes).

Add the bay leaves and the lamb and yoghurt mix and toss over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.

Pour over the water and cover and cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove the lid, turn the heat up to high and stir until most of the water evaporates and a good amount of thick sauce is left.

Strew the red and green chillies and coriander over the top, with some rice and serve with a cooling yoghurt dip (which was much needed). I made this by using some of the leftover plain yoghurt and mixing it with a bit of lite sour cream, a squeeze of lemon, some grated cucumber and a pinch of salt.

This was extremely delicious, the meat was tender and the sauce was super spicy and fragrant and just yummy.

The meat could easily be changed to chicken or beef if lamb's not your thing.

There are hundreds more recipes for me to try - and a spicy cocktail section at the back. Bring it on.

Chilli Eating Champs

Elliot and I think we can handle spicy food. Until we witness this madness. The competitors either have iron stomachs or are idiots. Probably both.

The New Zealand Chilli Eating Champs is run by Fire Dragon Chillies - who are growers of super hot chillies and make some insanely hot and tasty sauces. Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fire-Dragon-Chillies/116064058412869

Elliot and I were mere spectators at heat four of the competition at Dos Amigos Cantina in Mission Bay last Wednesday.

What unfolded before us was 13 rounds of heat, vomit, sweat, burning, tears, joviality, disappointment, triumph, and the result of which was undoubtedly some employers missing a few people from work the next day.

So with vomit buckets strategically placed, rules explained, glasses of milk and cold beers at the ready (as soon as they hit the lips though, you're out), about 20 competitors lined up, waivers signed, and with mixed looks of excitement (from those who were probably chilli eating champ virgins), nervousness and sheer fear.

And so it began.

Round one
Asian red chilli

A nice enough looking, smallish chilli measuring about 20,000 Scoville units (very mild in comparison to what was to come). The standard rules for eating raw chillies were spelled out - it must be chewed for 30 seconds, once the 30 seconds is up, mouths are opened to show the pulpy mess and then it can be swallowed.

Everyone managed to handle this first offering okay, bar one guy in the corner who looked like he would be the first to falter, but did stay in and everyone moved on to the next round.

NB: Details of each round get a tad, ah, sketchier as the night went on and the red wine consumption went up.

Round two
Guatemalan chilli

Another raw chilli round, and at about 50,000 Scoville units, slightly hotter than round one, but still nothing compared to what was to come. Everyone managed to keep this one down, with some comments that the first one was worse (I think the first one really must hit ya hard and as the night went on, one guy explained it wasn't so much the heat of the chillies that he couldn't handle anymore, rather the excruciating stomach pain).

Round three
Chilli con carne

The first "food" offering of the evening and at first glance it looked and smelled pretty tasty. However, the closer it got, the scarier it looked. You know the chilli itself is going to be hotter than anything most normal people eat in their life, but then to see it topped off with some fresh super hot chillies, well, it really made my eyes water.

Everyone had to get this down and swallowed in three minutes, and while only just, they all managed. Different techniques were adopted - we had the scoff it down and deal with the pain afterwards way, the slow and steady technique, and even the pour it into a glass and drink it method.

There were a couple of the four women participating who struggled with this one, and a guy who reached for the milk, but after a loud "noooooo" from the crowd, put it down and everyone got there in the end. The next round would not prove as successful.

Round four
Rocoto

This beast proved to be more than one person's downfall, including the guy Elliot and I would have put money on, as he did so well last year. One minute it was going down, a couple of seconds later we saw it all over again. As he left the table, disappointed, he explained it wasn't so much the heat but the texture of the thing, and that physically it just would not stay down.

This rocoto claimed a few victims, and a couple of the vomit buckets had to be cleared  - I think the poor waiter at Dos Amigos charged with that task must have been the new kid (I just hope the poor bastard didn't get the job of cleaning up what I hear was chilli chunk filled vomit in the urinals).

Round five
Chicken nibbles

I don't think they'll be going on the menu

Man, oh man, did these look good. Upon closer inspection, they looked, and smelled, pretty darn hot.

With a few casualties already, there were a few nibbles left over so Elliot and I managed to get hold of one to try. It most certainly was hot, edible (well, edible for us), but bloody hot. The heat stayed on the lips for a good few minutes, and combined with what these crazies had already eaten, I can't even imagine the pain they were in.

I don't think this round claimed any victims, but they soon started dropping fast.

Round six
Bishop's Crown

This Brazilian chilli looked cool. Scary, but cool. At about 100,000 units on the Scoville scale, they are getting pretty hot, and these were not small.

 

I think this round took out a few competitors (at this stage of the red wine consumption, the details not related to said red wine became minor), but I was still amazed at the amount of people still in and a couple of them were starting to look like front runners.

Round seven
Chilli soup

I guess the description "soup" was to make it seem as if they were giving these guys a meal, you know, pure nourishment. I think the description was a tad far fetching. Liquidised chillies would have been a tad more accurate me thinks. It was eye watering just to smell, but I would have consumed two bowls of the stuff rather than participate in the next round.

Round eight
Dried habanero

Now these are what I make our habanero powder from - yes, the powder of which I use 1/4 teaspoon for an entire batch of cookies - as it is that brutal. At about 300,000 Scoviille units, fresh habaneros are insanely hot for the lay person. An eighth of one of these puppies will make eyes water, then you go and dry them, and they are insaner (that's a word now). We use gloves just to handle these when taking them from the dehydrator.

When I saw these come out I was horrified, but ya know, they were halved (I imagine merely for the drying process) so one half was probably doable for these guys. Of course, they were then told to take two halves so they had a whole habanero.

Not only are these chillies hot, but the hard and dry consistency of them when they are dehydrated must make eating these so much harder, not to mention not having a drink to wash them down.

This certainly separated the men from the boys.

Round nine
Bhut Jolokia

These were the hottest variety of chilli Elliot and I grew last season. Trust me, they are brutal. And these ones were huge!

This got us down to four guys.

Round ten
Yellow Trinidad Scorpion Moruga

These were pretty. They smelt fruity and looked lovely and yellow. But they are bloody hot and at this point I could not comprehend that these people were still upright, let alone still eating these things.

This got us down to the final two competitors - the young guy who had been solid from the start and Old Man Winter, aka Santa, aka The Beard To Be Feared.

Round eleven
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia

An awesome looking chilli with a fantastic chocolate colour (not taste, unfortunately).

The final two chomped down on this super hot and looked like they were settling in for the long haul.

Round twelve
Another dried habanero just for good measure.

No faltering.

Round thirteen
A bowl containing a ridiculous amount of chilli was presented to the final two - The Beard took one look and shook his head. He was done (rather impressively with not much more than a bead or two of sweat on his brow) and the young gun took it out.

We had seen The Beard devour quite a large plate of nachos before the competition started - and according to one guy who went out about midway, eating beforehand is a must (he, unfortunately, had not).

It was a fantastic competition and a great night out (if you're watching). For my peeps in Wellington, the next round is at LBQ on the 26th - I highly recommend you attend, and if daring enough, grab a bottle of Fire Dragon Chilli sauce.

Elliot and I, along with four of our chilli-loving compadres, have tickets for the final at Hallertau on 13th July, which is part of a chilli and hops festival.

One can only imagine how much more brutal the final can get, but I am pretty sure I haven't seen the last of chilli vomit. Let's just hope this time I'm not close enough to get a whiff.

The remnants

Chilli season dos

I think gardening would be a lot more popular if people did it Gemma and Elliot style - planting seeds on a Saturday night whilst drinking and watching MTV (preferably Karaoke Club, but a top 400 countdown also works well).

No garden sheds, no dirty hands, rather wine and beer and TLC (Elliot and I identified a tad differently with the songs in the top 400 songs from the 90's countdown - I obviously was cool, Elliot liked Korn).

While the chilli plants don't go outside until about Labour weekend, we sowed the super hot varieties this weekend as it is quite the process to get them ready to go outside (and last year they took a bit longer to germinate than the non super hot varieties).

The seeds will take a few weeks to germinate; once germinated they will go into the light box and once they get to about 10 centimetres tall they will be separated out and potted up to bigger pots. They will be kept inside (apparently at this time we will no longer require half of our already very small lounge) until big and strong enough so that they can be hardened off (slowly introducing them to the outdoors by putting them outside for hours at a time, slowly increasing to whole days and then nights) when weather allows, and then they finally make the move outside.

A couple of weeks ago we decided what we were going to grow this year. We had a fair few seeds leftover from last season so had to decide what we wanted to grow again from those and what new varieties we wanted to try. This is no easy task - if you take a quick look on the net you will soon see how many varieties there are out there and the many different varieties the psychotic growers in America and England come up with each year - with the aim being to create the next hottest chilli in the world (this formidable title seems to change fairly often).

We are also limited space-wise due to still wanting to be able to walk on our deck, and not having planter beds any longer means we don't want huge plants (like the capsicums and marconis we grew last year) as they need to be amenable to growing in pots. Fortunately Elliot's Dad, Phil, has been a legend in nabbing some 15 litre buckets from work so we don't have to buy 20 more pots this season.

These have been washed well and will have holes drilled in them for drainage

So after the seed variety decision discussion was had, it was decided this year we will grow:

• Bhut Jolokia*
• Orange Habanero*
• Jalapeno
• Carolina Reaper*
• Jamaican Hot Chocolate* (not as sweet and delish as it sounds)
• NuMex Twilight
• Trinidad Yellow Scotch Bonnet*
• Brain Strain*
• Trinidad Scorpion Butch T*
• Black Pearl
• Takanotsume

*the super hot varieties (scientifically known as Capsicum chinense varieties - so named because the Dutch botanist who named them in the 18th century erroneously thought they originated in China).

We are sowing five seeds of each of the 11 varieties, but only really want about 20 plants. We had quite a good germination rate last year (approximately 70%) but are being super cautious this year and sowing many more than needed, but if necessary we will give any surplus plants away.

For the seeds we had to buy, we got them from The Hippy Seed Company in Australia - they have a fantastic range of crazy hot chillies (although their name prompted one friend to ask "are you sure they are chilli seeds?"). You can check them out at http://www.thehippyseedcompany.com/

Ordering was a breeze and the seeds arrived within days.

There are a few different ways to germinate seeds; we went with the following method:

Put a hole in the bottom of a plastic cup (Elliot did them with his soldering iron).

Write the name of the chilli on the side of the cup.

In a bowl moisten the seed raising mix with some water.

Fill each cup three quarters full with the seed raising mix.

Place the soil-filled cup inside another plastic cup with no hole.

Make five shallow holes in the soil.

Place one seed in each hole and gently cover with the soil.

Place a piece of Gladwrap over the cup and secure with a rubber band (this is to keep the moisture in - kind of a mini hot house - so that you don't have to keep watering them).

Place in a seed propagator with the lid on, plug it in and cover with a towel. This will keep the seeds warm at about 45°C.

Hopefully we will start to see results in a couple of weeks.

There are some mentally hot varieties this year which I will undoubtedly (and probably regrettably) try and incorporate into recipes. Stay tuned for the growing progress and spicy food to come.

Oh, and of course the highlight of my weekend was the Sunday morning trip to the storage unit trying not to make eye contact with anyone whilst walking out with a box lined with tinfoil, fluorescent lights, timers and plant pots.