So, earlier this month a friend had organised strawberry picking event up at Gnangara on a Sunday.
Thinking this will be a good chance to make another variant of Chilli Strawberry sauce based on a relish recipe by giramuk on theFlavorBender.
I did change a little on the recipe though to give it a South East Asian twist.
Growing up, I noticed that most popular snacks have a combination flavour, which is not common for western flavours. What I meant by combination flavours are combining two or even three distinctly flavours, like sweet and sour; or sweet and sour with saltiness.
Women around me (myself included) tend to gravitate to these taste, this is especially more so with pregnant women, which salted preserved dried plums are used as a cure for nausea, much like graham crackers with weak tea.
I have applied this concept to the sauce, combining sweet, tart and spiciness (per recipe above) but also incorporating a touch of saltiness.
What I have discovered in making this, is that no matter how runny the result is, you can also use the jus for a variety of ways.
Feedback on the sauce was encouraging, various friends and colleagues tried and all loved the taste. Mum particularly loved the mulled wine made from the jus. (see notes below)
Without further ardo, the recipe as below:
2 kg strawberries (hulled and chopped to bite size
½ teaspoon salt
2 cup red wine (whatever you want to cook with)
½ cup malt vinegar
4 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
500 gm brown sugar
1 medium lemon worth of zest
2 tablespoon lemon juice
15 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
4 medium-hot chillies (or less to your taste)
Directions:
1. Sprinkle the salt over the strawberries then mix it in, let it sit for a few minutes.
2. Lightly smash the cloves to better release flavour when cooking. If you do not want the cloves in the berries, have them and the cinnamon stick in a small cotton pouch and add it into the pot. (warning – the pouch will turn red as wine… will only be usable thereafter for food that is okay with red wine….)
3. Add all other ingredients (except the sugar) into a 5L pot. If you have a pressure cooker, now is the time to use it….
4. Bring it to a rolling boil (in pressure cooker, after a few whistles; then stop, de-pressurise, open and back on burner).
5. Add sugar and start simmering in low heat for 1hr.
6. Once reduced, ready to jar up in sterilised jars (they will keep for a longer period of time if sterilised and kept in cool dark place)
NOTES –
1. Given the low pectin content of strawberries, it will not gel up unless you have pectin, hence after reduction, the sauce will be a bit thick but no where as gel like as a proper jam. If you want it to gel up like jam, you will need to add 50g of pectin.
2. The recipe above will have a lot of liquid, I had extracted about 2 cups worth of liquid (jus) which I then have 1 cup mixed with red wine to make warm mulled wine, it was delicious on a cold night! I plan to use the liquid next time as Sangria base for summer, watch this space…….
Please comment and let me know on your thoughts 🙂
Cheers as always
LazyVegoExplorer xoxo
lazyvegoexplorer 