Spicy Dill Pickles

Spicy and delicious

Due to the nature of this quarantine there has definitely been a shortage of shelf stable ingredients. So here in the bottomless chips home kitchen we are looking into learning how to make all those delicious bits and bobs that we depend on. I think we might call this segment…”What’s In That Jar?” That sounds good to me.

Ingredients

This makes two pint sized jars worth of pickles

  • 4 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 4 jalapenos
  • 4 mini cucumbers
  • 2 tsp. dill seed
  • 2 tsp. chili flake
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup distilled vinegar
  • 2 tsp. kosher salt

Directions

  • Wash and sanitize your new jars before putting your delicious pickles in them.
  • Place one tsp each of dill seed and chili flake in your jars.
  • Peel and smash your garlic cloves and place two in each jar.
  • cut the stem off your jalapenos and put two in each jar.
  • Cut your cucumbers into thick chips and put two cucumbers worth of chips in each jar.
  • Put the water, vinegar and salt in a small pot and bring to a boil. Dump gently over pickles until jar is almost full of liquid.
  • Seal your jars and place in the fridge for 7 days.
  • Eat delicious pickles!

These are really spicy which is what I wanted. You can either tone down the chili flake or omit it all together if you want.

Spicy Sweet Sambal Noodles

Creamy and Spicy

A slight riff off of Bon Appetit’s chris morocco’s recipe.

Ingredients

  • Olive oil
  • 1 pound ground pork
  • 1 2-inch piece of ginger, cut into thin matchstick pieces
  • 5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
  • 4 tbsp. tomato paste
  • 1/3 cup chili paste (sambal oelek is the one I used.)
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • salt
  • spaghetti noodles

Directions

  1. Heat oil in a pan till it reacts like water (freely moving). Add half the pork to the pan and break into large chunks. Cook for five minutes in the pan undisturbed. Flip the pieces and cook for three more minutes.
  2. Add other half of pork, ginger, garlic and sugar to the pan. Break up into small chunks. Cook for five minutes.
  3. Add tomato paste cook about two minutes till it darkens and pork is covered.
  4. Add all of your liquids to the pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and cook for about thirty minutes so the flavors have time to meld together.
  5. Cook noodles till Al Dente then add to pan. Cook till sauce coats noodles. About five minutes.