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them if you are not going to keep them whole and remove the seeds and pith. Place them in the jars and in each jar put two to three peeled garlic cloves, two to three whole black peppercorns and three or four olives. Put some vinegar in a non-reactive pot and bring it to a boil. You may use apple-cider or white vinegar. Cover the peppers with the boiling vinegar, leaving a couple of centimetres of headspace. Use a chopstick to poke around and remove the air bubbles. Wipe rims clean and put on the lids. The lids seal if you put them on while the vinegar is still piping hot. Pickles are usually left to steep for a couple of weeks before you open a jar. An indigenous South African variety of pepper is the small, red pepper from Limpopo commonly sold pickled pipless under the trade name of Peppadew. They are easily grown in the garden and can be eaten raw, or filled with cream cheese. Chillies can be preserved in
IN THE KITCHEN all the above ways, but they also respond well to drying. They can be processed in a biltong dryer. However, drying chillies indoors can be a simple matter of stringing whole chillies together by passing a needle and thread through their green caps, and hanging them in a warm, well-ventilated space for about two weeks. It ' s a good idea to finish drying chillies in a warm oven for about 30 minutes before packing them away in airtight jars. Once they ' re fully dried they should last a year or more. Use dried chillies in all kinds of soups, stews, salsas and sauces. If you want to rehydrate them, place the chillies in a bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let them sit for 20 minutes, and they ' ll be soft and ready to cook with.
Capsicum baccatum, the piquante pepper sold processed as Peppadew
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