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Food: The red hot chilli peppers
Independent, The (London), Jul 12, 2003 by Mark Hix
SCOTCH BONNET, jalapeno, and snub nose sound innocent enough. In fact, they're all members of the chilli family, and the pretty scotch bonnet is one of the fiercest and fieriest of the red hot peppers.
One or other of these chillis plays an important part in many a national dish, from Thailand to India and in the USA's deep South. I must admit that, though I like the spiciness of chilli, I've always found the heat a bit of a worry. Some mad chilli freaks get off on it, but you'd never find me ordering a vindaloo or eating chillies for a bet.
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One way of getting that chilli hit - and allowing people to choose how much heat to add to what they're eating - is from a bottle, and in the UK the best known bottled chilli sauce is probably Tabasco. This comes in many different guises, from the original hot red pepper sauce to the green pepper sauce, habanero and garlic. Smokey chipotle pepper sauce is the latest addition.
I discovered a whole lot more about Tabasco and the local cuisine on a recent trip to Avery Island off Louisiana. The island has been in the Avery/McIlhenny family for the past 175 years and it's where Tabasco originated. Edmund McIlhenny, a fifth generation American of Scottish Irish descent, married Mary Eliza Avery, whose family owned a sugar plantation on the island. Edmund, a keen gardener, tended the plantation's vegetable garden. Of several varieties of peppers planted there, his favourite was one given to him a few years ago by a friend returning from Mexico.
The civil war forced the couple off the island, but when they returned in 1865 they found the pepper plants had flourished and developed an extra piquancy. Edmund's experiments with these fiery peppers led to the development of a recipe for a pepper sauce. Since the first 350 bottles were released in 1869, Tabasco - a Central American Indian word meaning "land where the soil is humid" - has become world-famous and is the trademark of the McIlhenny Company.
The sauce consists of crushed ripe peppers mixed with local salt. This mixture is aged in crockery jars for 30 days. French wine vinegar is added, and it's aged for a further 30 days. The narrow- necked bottles, corked and dipped in green sealing wax, haven't changed since Edmund invented them.
Tabasco inevitably plays its part in the local cuisine, which consists of Cajun and Creole styles. Cajun is the local, robust country cooking with generally hot, peppery flavours. Local dishes like gumbo, jambalayas and etouffees can contain a variety of ingredients - duck, chicken, pork, crawfish (locals call them mud bugs) or crayfish as we know them, and various sausages. Creole cooking was developed and influenced by the French and Spanish settlers who introduced refinements to the existing cooking. Sauces became more fragrant with the use of herbs and spices which were hard to come by in the countryside.
Creole also divides into haute Creole, with luxury dishes such as the famous Oysters Rockefeller, and lower Creole with dishes like red beans and rice. As in most countries the cuisine has evolved, and over the past 12 years Cajun and Creole have merged into Louisiana Food. Whatever you call it, it wouldn't be the same without a splash of chilli sauce ...
Chicken and smoked sausage jambalaya
Serves 4-6
Louisiana's famous jambalayas can be made with almost anything from seafood to game and quite often a mixture from land and sea. As it's closely related to paella, it seems likely that jambalaya was introduced by Spanish settlers. The origin of the word itself shows the other influences at work, as it is thought to be made up of bits from France - jambon and la - mixed with the word ya which means rice in many West African dialects.
Jambalaya can be as luxurious or as humble as you wish but like risottos you must start with a good flavoured stock or broth as they call it. Adding smoked sausage (andouille in the local vernacular) gives a nice savoury touch. Look for smoked bratwurst or a Polish- type sausage in the supermarket. Tomatoes also feature in some recipes, so once you have made it a few times you can create your own jambalaya.
500g chicken thighs, boned and skinned and cut into 4
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
2 sticks of celery, peeled if necessary and cut into rough 1cm dice
1 green pepper, seeded and cut into rough 1cm dice
12tsp cayenne pepper
2tsp chopped thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
Vegetable oil for frying
200g smoked sausage, halved lengthways and cut into 1cm pieces
5 or 6 dashes of Tabasco sauce or more if you wish
1litre chicken stock and a little more if necessary
2tsp tomato puree f
200g long grain rice
4 spring onions, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and saute them in vegetable oil on a high heat. Give them about 4-5 minutes on each side until nicely coloured. Remove from the pan and put to one side. In a large, thick-bottomed, covered saucepan, with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, gently cook the onion, garlic, celery and green pepper with the cayenne pepper, thyme and bay leaf for 5-6 minutes without colouring. Add the chicken, sausage, Tabasco, chicken stock and tomato puree, season with salt and pepper and cook on a low heat with the lid on for 30 minutes.
