Crystalised (Candied) Chili Peppers

I said that this October I was going to try some unusual recipes in search of more grown-up, sophisticated Halloween treats. This was one of my first experiments: crystalised (candied) chili peppers!

This idea came out of a conversation that I was having with my brother's girlfriend. She is originally from Ecuador, and has a much, much higher spice threshold than I do. She was eating some ginger nut biscuits and wondered if a chili and chocolate version could exist.

I wondered if you could hide little heat bombs inside the biscuits with some pieces of pepper. However, putting fresh chili into the biscuits would compromise their shelf-life. It was then I thought about candying them.

Candying fruit is a very simple process: essentially, you poach the fruit in simple syrup until fully cooked and tender. The sugar in the syrup permeates the fruit and preserves it from the inside out. It's important to cook the fruit until it's translucent and well soaked in the syrup.

When the fruit is candied, it can be dried and tossed in sugar, as shown here. Or, it can be stored in the delicious leftover spicy syrup. The syrup itself is fantastic in cocktails and--oddly enough--as an extra warmth factor in mulled wine. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

This recipe also includes bonus lemon slices, but if you want to properly candy lemon slices you have to blanch them first in boiling water for 1 minute to remove the bitterness.

INGREDIMENTS

Roughly 4 ounces (115 grammes) medium or mild chilli peppers

12 fluid ounces (340 millilitres) water

8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar

One 2 inch (5 centimetre) piece of cinnamon stick

3 peppercorns

3 slices of lemon, roughly a ¼ inch (5 millimetres) thick

METHOD

• Cut the chilli peppers in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut each half into four pieces.
• Put the chilli pieces in a small saucepan and add in the water, sugar, cinnamon stick, peppercorns, and lemon slices.
• Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once boiling, reduce the temperature to a very gentle simmer and cook for about an hour to 90 minutes, until the pieces of chilli are tender and translucent. Make sure the simmer is gentle, otherwise the syrup will thicken too quickly and the peppers won't cook through fully.
• Remove the chilli peppers and lemon slices from the syrup, but don't throw the syrup away. It can be kept in a glass jar and used for cocktails and chilli sauces.
• Lie the pieces on a wire rack and allow to dry for a day if you want to toss in sugar, or you can store the chilli peppers refrigerated in the strained syrup in a glass container.