Mellow fruitfulness - autumn harvest

Along with the smells of mellow earth and burning leaves, autumn also brings aromas of vinegar, honey, sugar and fruits in our house. I only have a small freezer and no room to install a bigger one, so if I'm lucky enough to get a produce glut (and there's usually something that runs riot and produces far more than we can reasonably eat while it's still fresh), it needs to be preserved some other way.

Liqueurs, pickles, jellies and chutneys will use up a satisfyingly large amount of excess produce and keep for months - indeed, liqueurs and chutneys are often at their best if kept for months before you start to use them. You can happily experiment with ingredients and the balance of spicing to suit your palate and nearly always end up with something delicious - although I am still haunted by the spiced quince chutney which tasted fine but looked exactly like Pedigree Chum.

Jellies

Jellies are I think particularly rewarding. They look beautiful: clear and in jewel-like colours. Quince jelly sets to a rich tawny amber colour; the golden lemon chilli jelly is almost irridescent when it catches the morning sun. They are versatile:can be spread on bread, rolls or toast, can accompany meats and cheese, a scant teaspoonful will lift a gravy and I did once, in extremis, use damson jelly as a filling for a Victoria sponge when I found the strawberry jam jar quite empty. They use up loads of fruit (and, it must be said, an industrial amount of sugar) and make good gifts for friends, school fairs and harvest festivals.


The quince jelly (above left) is made using the classic method: chop up quinces and boil in water with a little lemon juice for about an hour, then strain overnight through a jelly bag. The next day, boil up again using 450g sugar for every 600ml of juice, and boil rapidly until the setting point is reached.

The lemon chilli jelly (left) is made with an apple juice base: chop up apples, simmer in water with a little lemon juice* for an hour then strain through a jelly bag. Next day, boil up again using the same juice-to-sugar ratio as above - I find apple jelly very quick to set compared to others. While the liquid is boiling away, chop up around 60-80g of hot lemon** chillies and one yellow sweet pepper - I put them in the mini food processor to get the pieces very fine and it means I don't have to take my eye off the jelly pan for too long. Once the setting point is reached, turn off the heat and stir in the chillies. Stir the mix again when you're just about to pour into jars to ensure the chilli pieces are distributed evenly.





* This year's batch, very poncily, uses fresh bergamot juice as the citrus as I've had a big fat bergamot hanging from my Citrus bergamia bush all summer and hadn't yet found a use for it.

** I use yellow chillies to highlight the gorgeous honey blonde colour of this jelly, but finely chopped red chillies (and a red sweet pepper) would be visually stunning suspended in the pale jelly as well.

Pickles

I'm not as adventurous with pickles as I could be: sweet peppers, and also chilli peppers, in glut years, will be preserved this way. I also regularly go through the shallots to pick out the smallest ones and pickle these in white wine vinegar, salt and tarragon. Peeling tiny shallots, even after they've been soaked in boiling water, is a pain, but once that's been done, it's a quick and easy method.

There is also always one pumpkin that you know won't be a keeper, whether it's been damaged, or as happened this year, because the fruit grew through the plastic mesh supporting the plants and ended up looking more like a Penny Bun than a pumpkin. Non-keeping squash will also be pickled: peeled, sliced into slim wedges and steeped in white wine vinegar, spiced with coriander, allspice, mace, ginger, chillies and a little star anise. This year I took inspiration from Karon Grieve's recipe at Larder Love and added a spoonful of sherry to the pickling liquor. Pickled pumpkin, served with pickled walnuts (sadly, not having a walnut tree, I have to buy these) and burrata or very fresh mozzarella, makes an excellent no-cook Christmas Day starter to keep everyone quiet while you finish off the main course.



Liqueurs
Flavoured liqueurs are an rewarding way to use up a glut of fruit while creating something delicious. The basic method is to steep fruit, with sugar, in your chosen alcohol - I often use vodka because it doesn't have a strong flavour of its own but it's fun to experiment. Brandy and gin are both excellent vehicles for making a fruit-based liqueur and impart their own flavour to the finished drink.

You can leave the fruit and sugar gently infusing the alcohol for days, weeks, even months. The amount of sugar to add is really down to your own taste and also depends on the natural sweetness of the fruit. For the damson gin, shown here still at the infusion stage, I will add half the weight of the damsons in sugar, ie, 500g of sugar to every 1kg of damsons.

For blackberry vodka (creme de mure), below, you can use less sugar as the blackberries tend to be sweeter than damson and to use a similar amount would give you quite a cloying liqueur.

The infusion needs to be kept somewhere cool and dark and the process can't be hurried. At the beginning, you can up-end the jar every couple of days to get the sugar to dissolve; once it has, leave the mixture severely alone.

After a couple of months, you might want to taste the infusion - just to see how it's doing. It probably won't taste quite ready, so re-seal and leave alone again for another couple of months. But once it does taste a bit more rounded, a bit more full-bodies, strain the liqueur through muslin or a fine nylon sieve into a clean jar, reseal, put it back in the cool dark place, and leave again for a good couple of months before tasting.

I made the blackberry vodka at the end of July and I'm planning to use it in a celebratory Kir Royale to toast in the New Year. The damson gin above still has a way to go; I think we'll start sipping that with our first outdoor suppers next spring.

Note: when making any of these preserves, including the liqueurs for long-term storage and use, make sure all your jars, bottles, utensils, etc, are sterilised. This can be done easily enough in a hot dishwasher cycle, followed by drying them off in an oven at 120 degrees. Don't forget to do the lids as well!

Hot chilli sauce

One chilli that won't be coming in for the winter is the Hot Lemon plant, This has plenty of ripe fruits ready for harvesting, and I don't have the space inside for a plant that has had all its fruit harvested and which is not growing any more.

This variety always crops well in a pot on the patio, where it's sunny and reasonably sheltered. It produces large numbers of green fruit in late summer, which are astringent, but relatively mild early in the season. They ripen to yellow in autumn and the flavour matures, and heats up, always retaining those distinctive citrus notes. 

I wanted to make a chilli sauce with the 2013 harvest, one that I could store next to the bright red habanero sauce and my favourite green pepper sauce.

Nearly all the recipes I looked at contained tomatoes which bulk out the sauce and add a fruity taste. I’m happy with that, but I did want to preserve the bright sunshiney yellow of the lemon chillies. So I set off to try to find yellow tomatoes to use with my chillies, in England, in November. And found them almost immediately in Tesco.

Lemon chilli sauce

200g fresh Hot Lemon chillies

4-5 small yellow tomatoes

50-100g yellow pepper (1-2 mini peppers), optional

50ml white wine vinegar

30g caster sugar

1 dsp water

Put the vinegar and sugar into a pan. Give the chillies a quick wash, remove the stalks and chop roughly. Don’t worry about removing seeds. Add them to the pan. Chop the tomatoes and add them too. Cut the stalks off the pepper, if using, scoop out the seeds and the white membrane, chop roughly and add that too. Adding the sweet pepper helps to give the sauce a bit of body but too much of it makes it taste bitter, paradoxically.

Bring the ingredients in the pan to the boil, add the water, turn down the heat and simmer very gently, covered for about 15 minutes until the peppers and tomato have softened. Remove the lid and continue simmering for another 5 mins. Remove from the heat and leave to cool a little while you sterilise a jar.

Liquidise in a blender until smooth, then taste – carefully, it should have a kick like a mule. Add a teasp of vinegar or sugar if you think the sauce needs sharpening or sweetening. Push through a sieve to get rid of any seeds, pips or bits of tomato skin. Pour into the sterilised jar, seal and label.

Rather than throwing away the leftover seeds, and skins, try this idea from the community section of Nigella Lawson's website, posted by 'kenkrahn' on http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/sweet-orange-chilli-sauce-1739: take the leftover bits of skins, seed and pith, and spread them out on greaseproof paper (the recipe says a cookie sheet). Once dry this mash can be pulverised in a spice grinder to make your own chilli powder. No wastage whatsoever.

These lemon chillies also make terrific chilli jelly (it's the last item in the post) - full of flavour, hot and zingy and fruity, all at the same time.

Chilly outside, chillies inside

We've already had the first frost in London and there's more sub-zero nights on the way, according to the weather forecast. Time to bring in the rest of the plants. Most of my spice plants – cardamom, turmeric, ginger and pandan - are already safely indoors, but the chillies and citrus were still out until the weekend.

Chillies will overwinter quite happily, best somewhere with plenty of light, not over-warm, but definitely frost-free. They may well lose many leaves, but you should see new growth in January. And while you won’t get chillies developing all year round you will get some very early fruits in the next spring. They are however quite short-lived perennials, only lasting 2-3 years in any case. 

Citrus plants, for all that they like the wide variations in temperature - warm days and cool nights - won't stand any frost at all. They need to come indoors and spend winter in a cool place - between 7 and 13 degrees Celsius. They don't like very dry air, and they don't need much in the way of watering over the winter months.

Kaffir lime, ready for clean-up before coming indoors. 

Before the plants come in, however, they will need to be cleaned up. With chillies especially, you'll often find an infestation of aphids takes hold about three weeks or so after bringing them in. Aphids are perhaps easier to prevent than cure. On inspection, your citrus plants too may be harbouring pests that need to be removed before relocating indoors. Mine tend to be susceptible to scale, which can be rubbed off or scrubbed away with an old toothbrush. Check particularly on the underside of leaves alongside the central vein.

Left, scale insects lurking on the leaves; right, snail leaves its last trail on this particular plant.

I often find tiny snails hiding in the foliage of both chillies and citrus: dispose of these so they don't get to spend all winter chomping away on your leaves.

So the plants all get a bit of a spruce-up before being allowed to cross the threshold. First I remove any tatty, holey, yellowing leaves, any withered or brown stems, old flowerheads, etc. Any weeds that have seeded in the pots (perish the thought!) are removed.

Cleaning up the smaller plants is easily done by dunking them in soapy water, I'm indebted to citrus specialist Plants4Presents for this tip: it's a lot less fiddly than going over the whole plant with a handheld spray, sponge and toothbrush. Tie a clear plastic bag around the pot and the base of the main stem, fill a sink (or a bath if you have several plants) with soapy water (lukewarm water plus detergent to the same dilution as if you were washing up will do fine), up-end the plant and dunk it, leaves first, into the sink (bath). Count to five and haul it out again. Leave it to drain, right way up, before putting it in its final overwintering place. This should stop any aphids lurking in the leaves in their tracks. If you get any further infestations during the winter, repeat the process. 

Sowing Sunday

Today has come to be known as Sowing Sunday here at the Zia Maison. The Mediterranean vegetables that like a nice long season are sown today: tomatoes, aubergines, chillies, peppers, and also the first tranche of basil and lemon grass, if there is none left from last year (and there never is). It feels like the right time to sow all of these, although I have started tomatoes earlier and will sow another batch later – the first lot will hopefully begin to ripen before any blight strikes and the second wave can take advantage of an Indian summer, should we be lucky enough to have such a thing.

However, there’s nothing significant about the date except that it’s the Sunday at the end of half-term, which makes it easy to remember. Most of the packets for the seeds I used today say ‘Sow Feb-Mar’ or ‘Sow in early spring’ and it can be frustratingly difficult to know when the best time within that window might be. It’s not even so much about whether we’re under snow in February or enjoying early spring sunshine, since the seeds will all be sown in a  heated propagator anyway. It’s more to do with what the weather will be doing in 4-6 weeks time, when the seedlings need potting up, on, or even outside altogether. Kept in tiny windowsill pots too long, they’ll grow leggy and weak; transplanted too late they won’t set fruit until late summer, but then again, plant out too soon and the cold nights could finish them off.

It’s no wonder gardeners have come up with some easy-to-remember traditions for sowing and planting. 'Plant garlic on the shortest day and harvest on the longest', for example. In truth, garlic will grow best if planted just before the temperature plummets towards zero for a 10-day chill … so, yes, just before Christmas seems like a good bet. Leeks should be transplanted on the longest day as well, apparently. Mine are usually more like blades of grass in mid-June, but the saying does serve to remind me that it’s a job moving inexorably towards the top of the to-do list.

It’s also traditional to plant potatoes over Easter weekend, which could make you a hostage to fortune given that Easter can fall at any time between late March (which would leave your spuds very vulnerable to frost) to late April (fine for maincrops, but cutting it fine for your earlies).

Chilli Sunday

If it’s the end of February half-term then it must be Sowing Sunday. This is the day which marks the start of the growing year for me, when the first chillies, aubergines, tomatoes and lemon grass are sown indoors. The chillies need to get off to an early start for what will hopefully be a nice long growing season this year. I’ve sown these in modules – two seeds per modules – and the trays are in a heated propagator right next to a bay window. The window is north-facing but gets lots of light. It’s a method that has always worked well although I always worry that this year nothing will germinate until I see the tiny green loops peep above the surface.

From left to right: Caldero, Cayenne chillies drying out, Black Hungarian

The chillies are a) Cayenne, because the plants are heavy croppers, and the fruit are not too hot. They dry well and can be used to pep up so many dishes; b) Hot Lemon, because the combination of citrus+fire is irresistible. These are amazing sliced wafer-thin in salads, or stirred into Asian style soups at the last-minute, or made into a hot and slippery chilli jelly; c) Fish Pepper, because they are such attractive plants, producing multi-coloured, very pungent fruit (and because I had to pick most of them green last year – I want to see what they will be like in a  good year); d) Black Hungarian for their gorgeous deep aubergine-purple colour and fruity flavour; e) Caldero, because they are mild and juicy and a beautiful eau-de-nil colour that slowly ripens to red like a tequila sunrise; f) Pimientos de Padron because I can fry them up and pretend I’m in a backstreet bar somewhere in Galicia; and g) Roberto’s, a Cuban chilli I’ve never grown before, but again, is meant to be flavoursome rather than merely fiery.

Some early tomatoes (Black Russian, Marmande, Razzleberry) went in at the same time and they are up already. Also just beginning to show are a few aubergines, the last remaining seeds from a batch bought two years ago, which I sowed into the spare modules once the tomatoes were done. Both tomatoes and aubergines have been moved, still under cover, but unheated, to a south-facing window to grow on. From now until May, every windowsill in the house will be commandeered by seed trays and pots until I can trust the night temperatures and start moving seedlings out into the patio greenhouse.

Next weekend I’ll start off a couple of pots of Genovese basil – too early really. I think basil needs stronger light levels. But in a month’s time, they will take off and I should be able to start picking by the end of April.

The last of the apples

Among the chillies I grew this year was a yellow variety called Hot Lemon from Nicky’s Seeds. It lived up to its name, ripening from emerald green to a bright lemon yellow, a punchily hot flavour and, yes, a distinctly citrusy tang.

I had thought my final apple jelly might be a spicy version with cinnamon, cloves and maybe some ginger, but then remembering the success of the red chilli jelly I made last year based on Nigella Lawson’s recipe, I decided a clear clean sharp lemon version using these chillies might be the best way to use them.

It took a couple of goes to get it right – my first attempt was visually stunning, a shimmering pale yellow, looking more like Roses’ Lime Marmalade, but the set was too weak. Once the liquor was boiled down to a good set, the colour was more amber than lemon, but the taste is there – hot, sweet and crystal sharp all at the same time.

Lemon chilli jelly

150ml cider vinegar

750ml water

Juice of 4 lemons

1½kg cooking apples

600ml juice

450g sugar

1 large yellow pepper

150g yellow chillies, eg, Hot Lemon, or Aji Amarillo

Put all the liquid ingredients in a large pan. Roughly chop the apples – do not peel or core, but discard any bruised, damaged or holed bits – and add to the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 45 minutes, stirring and squishing the apples from time to time.

Let the mixture cool a little, then strain through a jelly bag or butter muslin overnight. Do not try to speed the process up by squeezing or pushing the liquid through the fabric, or the resulting liquid will make a cloudy jelly. Just let it drip.

The next day, measure out your juice into a large pan. For each 600ml juice, add 450g sugar, and heat, gently at first to dissolve the sugar, then turn the heat up so that the mixture can boil hard. Meanwhile, core and deseed the pepper, removing any white pith and cut into large pieces. Cut the stalks off the chillies, slice in half lengthways and remove the seeds and core. Put the pepper pieces and chillies into a food processor and blitz until well minced.

Back to the jelly - when the setting point has been reached, skim the surface very carefully to leave the liquid clear, then add the minced chilli and pepper pieces. Leave the jelly to cool in the pan until it is just beginning to solidify, then ladle into sterilised jars, seal and label.

Green chicken curry

At this time of year, the chillies are beginning to ripen on the plants. Caldero fruits turn from pale green, to cream, to orange, to red - like a Tequila Sunrise of the chilli world. Black Hungarian darken from green to, well not black, but a deep aubergine purple. It reminds me that if I want to cook anything that specifically requires green chillies, then I only have a limited time left.
With several aubergines ready to pick as well, I've been thinking about a green Thai curry. With home-grown shallots, garlic, lemon grass, and Kaffir lime leaves, I can put together a fresh and zingy Thai spice paste just by stepping outside the back door.


Serves two


Spice paste
Half a teaspoon of coriander seeds
Quarter teaspoon cumin seeds
Quarter teaspoon (about 5-6) green peppercorns
3 fresh green chillies, trimmed and deseeded
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 shallots
2 stalks of lemon grass, trimmed
2 large Kaffir lime leaves
Half an inch of fresh ginger
3-4 coriander roots and lower stalks - reserve the leaves, see below
Pinch of salt
Half a teaspoon shrimp paste


Grind the coriander, cumin and green peppercorns to powder in a small food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and pulverise until you have a smooth green paste.


Curry
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 chicken breasts, cut into bitesize chunks
Handful of French beans, trimmed
1 large or 2 slim purple aubergines, trimmed and cut into 2cm cubes
2 Kaffir lime leaves, chopped
150ml coconut cream
Half tablespoon fish sauce
Half teaspoon sugar
2 tbsp stock/water
Handful Thai basil leaves
Coriander leaves, see above


Bring a panful of water to the boil, add the French beans and blanch for 2 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water. You can save the cooking water to use in place of the stock/water in the ingredients list. 
Heat the oil in a wide pan or wok. Add the garlic and saute for about 30 seconds. Throw in the green curry paste and stir until well mixed. Add the coconut cream, and heat up until it bubbles and thickens. Add the chicken and aubergines, stir well and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 5-10 minutes. Add the fish sauce, sugar and stock/water and stir well to mix. Keep simmering until cooked through - this could be just a couple of minutes more. Add the French beans and chopped lime leaves, stir well.
Taste the curry and adjust the fish sauce/sugar if necessary. Chop the coriander leaves roughly - add these and the whole Thai basil leaves. Stir well to mix, bring back to simmering, and then serve.

Things to do with chillis

November 10, 2009: I grow chillis in my back garden in tubs - three plants to a tub. Even in poor summers, they produce a crop which provides me with plenty of chillis to keep us going over winter and into the next year, and enough to share with family and friends as well. This year, I grew four varieties: Cayenne, Joe's Long Cayenne (and they were long - up to 6inches); Numex Twilight and Fiesta. The last two look like little chilli-coloured bullets and are much hotter than the others.

In previous years I have tried jalapenos (reliable but a trifle dull), orange cayenne and Big Sun; I'm also looking for some dwarf varieties for next year.

What I like about growing chillis, apart from the fact that they are very attractive plants and ridiculously easy to grow, is that you never really have a glut that's overwhelming. There are lots of things you can do with chillis and they keep well on the plant or in the bottom of the fridge while you find time to hang them up or make that jelly.

Pickled chillis

A straightforward pickling recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef. He stipulates medium green chillis; I use this recipe for my little bullet-shaped flavour bombs. They lose their colour a little bit in the brine, but none of their flavour.

600g chillis

15 black peppercorns

5 bay leaves

2 tbsp coriander seeds

5 tsps salt

6 heaped tbsps caster sugar

1l white wine vinegar or rice vinegar

Sterilise a large jar by washing, then rinsing, in very hot soapy water. Then leave the jars to dry in the oven at 120 degrees. (Jamie doesn’t say you should do this; I always think, why not?)

Carefully score the chillis from the stalk end to the tip one one side only and remove the seeds (use the handle of a teaspoon for this). Pour boiling water over the chillis, let them sit for 5 mins, then drain. This will get rid of most of the seeds left behind.

Next put your black peppercorns, bay leaves, coriander, chillis and salt into a large jar or other airtight container. Put the sugar and the vinegar into a pan and heta until the sugar is fully dissolved. When this is quite hot but not boiling, pour into the jar with the chillis. Allow it to cool down nd then put the lid on, put into the fridge and lave for a minimum of two weeks before using, They will keep in the fridge for at least 4 months. (Mine keep for over a year, by which time I‘ve eaten them all.)

Pickled plums with chillis

You get two for the price of one here: hot pickled plums and sweet pickled chillis

20 plums

10 whole red chillis

250ml white wine or cider vinegar

400ml water

300g sugar

5 bay leaves

2 star anise

2 cloves

½ teasp chilli powder or chilli flakes (optional)

1 teasp salt

Sterilise jars by washing, then rinsing, in very hot soapy water. Then leave the jars to dry in the oven at 120 degrees.

Wash the plums, dry them, cut in half lengthways and remove the stones. Wash and dry the chillis, trim the stalks and pierce the chillis a few times.

Heat the vinegar, water, sugar, spices and salt in a pan. Pack the plums, chillis and bay leaves evenly among the jars. When the pickling liquor comes to the boil, remove from the heat and pour into the jars. Stir the jars with a clean spoon to let any trapped air escape, the seal the jars and cover. Leave to cool, then put into the fridge.

Frozen chillis

Destalk the chillis and remove the seeds if you wish. Chop roughly and put in the goblet of a blender with a little water to help swish them along. Blend until you have a rough puree. Squash the pulp into ice cube trays and freeze, then pop the cubes into polythene freezer-proof bags. Every time you want a chilli hit, you can either use a whole cube or chip a bit off as required.

Dried chillis

Thread a needle with ordinary sewing thread and tie the ends in a knot so that you have a double strand to sew with. Then thread the chillis together – just push the needle through the stalk of each chilli. Once you have your chilli ‘chain’, hang it up somewhere with plenty of airflow. Mine are suspended from the top of the kitchen cabinets immediately above the cooker hood. Then every time you want a chilli, just snip one off with scissors.

These keep for months, although they will lose colour a little bit.

Chilli jelly

This is based on Nigella Lawson’s beautiful chilli-flecked jelly or jam, the recipe for which is published in her Christmas book and also at http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=20157. I say based on because the first time I tried it, it needed longer than the 10-minute boil that Nigella stipulates and I ended up finding it easier to test for a set the traditional way, even though Nigella says this is all too difficult and time-consuming (no, it isn’t). Since then I have also used apple juice as well as water as the base liquor which I think gives it a deeper, more fruity flavour – without being obviously appley. But I love having the fragments of chilli suspended in the jelly in the way that Nigella suggests, so this recipe is a mixture of hers and my own.

150g long fresh red chillies.

150g red peppers

1kg jam sugar

475ml cider, apple or white wine vinegar

2 apples

300ml water

Juice of one lemon

Squeeze the lemon juice into a large pan. Add 75ml of the vinegar. Chop the apples roughly – no need to peel or core them – and add to the pan along with the water. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Strain overnight through a jellybag, leaving the liquid to drip through into a bowl underneath. You should end up with about 250ml apple juice.

Next day, sterilise your jars by washing them in very hot soapy water, rinsing in very hot water then leaving to dry in the oven at 120 degrees.

Deseed the chillis and cut into about four pieces. Core and deseed the red peppers and cut into rough chunks. Put the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.

Dissolve the sugar in the rest of the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring. Add 250ml apple juice. Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rollicking boil for 10 minutes.

Start testing for a set: take a clean teaspoon and a clean side plate. Spoon 2 teasps of the jelly mixture on to the plate. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes then push a fingertip (which will, of course, also be very clean) through the middle of the pool of jelly mixture on the plate. If your fingertip parts the jelly into two sides which then stay separated AND the jelly you’re pushing away wrinkles nicely, then you have a set.

The first time or two that you try, you will probably separate the jelly liquor into two separate pools but there will be no wrinkling. Clean the plate and spoon and leave the pan boiling for another 3-4 minutes before testing again. You should really remove the pan from the heat when you’re testing (in case it has set already) but in practice I only start doing this when I know the liquor is close to setting anyway.

Take the pan off the heat and allow it to cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.

After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the hints of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.