Chili Peppers in Oil

As soon as the season of vegetables, fruit and all the other gifts of nature arrives, everyone rushes to preserve them. It looks like a kind of madness — people put up tons of everything for the winter. I prefer fresh dishes, for example chili peppers in oil.

Of course, the point of preserving is to save the harvest and keep yourself stocked with food through the winter. I once read somewhere that some foods keep quite well in fat. French cuisine has a term for it — confit. The word means “preserved”. It is a very old method that lets you keep certain foods for a long time. Most often it is used for meat or game. While cooking, the confit meat becomes very soft and tender, then it is packed into a container and covered with rendered fat.

When I was little, at my grandmother’s in the village they made homemade pork sausage, then packed it into a clay pot and covered it with rendered pork fat. After a further spell in the oven, the lard set and kept the sausage for a long time. The important thing, though, was not to let the fat go rancid. Such a preserve rarely lasted longer than 2–3 months.

The same method is also used to make seasonings. Anyone who cooks Mediterranean food probably flavors olive oil a little with garlic and aromatic herbs. A confit is the perfect way to make such an oil.

You often come across recipes that use a flavored preserve instead of plain olive oil. While young garlic is in season, it is slowly stewed in olive oil, then stored in jars, and both the oil and the garlic cloves are used as needed — garlic confit as a seasoning.

At home we often make pasta with various sauces, or just sauces — mostly for pizza. Marinara sauce is tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and spices. Pizza marinara with this sauce is simply superb (although many people think marinara means seafood). When cooking, the olive oil is usually heated with a few crushed garlic cloves, the garlic is fried and then removed from the oil. The oil is used for further cooking.

I have several recipes for fried chili peppers — spicy appetizers I really love. They keep well for a long time. For the winter, it is worth putting up pickled hot peppers.

I had the idea of making hot chili peppers in oil, with garlic cloves and herbs. First, it is a great way to prepare olive oil to use later as a base for frying and for making sauces. Second, both the garlic and the chili-infused oil will be delicious and will most likely be gone very quickly — I know that from experience.

To be honest, I didn’t even expect chili peppers in oil to be this tasty.

So, homemade chili peppers in oil are a base for tasty dishes and sauces. And the peppers themselves are an appetizer, or simply a treat for connoisseurs.

For me, chili peppers in oil are a real treat. I have several recipes for fried peppers — appetizers I really love. Chili peppers in oil are the best appetizer to go with meat.