Chilli paste. Humble but mighty, fragrant but feisty. It’s strong enough to peel the chemicals off a stainless steel knife, it can tingle your tastebuds until they can tango no longer, it will make your mouth water and your eyes sting and swelter like a gaudy neon sign. It is a force to be reckoned with, a force capable of causing an 8.8 on the Richter Scale and sending your heart into hyperdrive. But most surprising of all is that everything I have just mentioned has been blatantly disregarded in the past as though it were a practice fire drill. Of all people on the suspect list, my grandfather admitted readily to the crime of contradicting the urban legend of this fiery paste, stating his alibi as a man who habitually reaches for teaspoon after teaspoon of his chilli paste to spread through his soups and steaks as though it were a mere trifle to his defiant will for spiciness. Perhaps the man is more a legend than the recipe itself, for he is well-known in my family for his iron stomach that has survived all known attacks of food poisoning and a palate so strong even the fieriest of dishes are a mere tickle to his incredible heat threshold. On several occasions, he would leave plates of cooked food out and forget to put it into the fridge. His profile? He has been confronted about this terrible habit on many accounts, and his excuse is always the same: “It’s a cold day, why does it need to go into the fridge so quickly?”. Other times it was that lovable forgetfulness that had him stow away a plate of canned mackarel into the cupboard for days without cling wrap, leave the gas stove running while bargaining in the delicatessen about the rising price of salami or even pouring in so much red wine into his pasta sauces, the colour would shift unevenly to an eerie, glowing purple.
Amidst all the commotion I have made about a seemingly simple recipe for chilli paste, two questions are probably stinging you right now: ‘is it really that hot?’ and ‘is it really worth trying?’ To tell you the truth, I could never understand why he would boast about the large plastic bags he collected and filled to the brim with dried chilli seeds, until they were made into paste, jarred for a few months and applied liberally to his spaghetti al’olio. It was an experience my tongue has not forgiven me for. Even to this very day, his outside office is stocked with recycled jars of chilli so dense and so hot that the liquid will stain your spoon and holds a vivid brown consistency when held to the light. This is a tribute to his art for the spiciest meal that somehow retains an intoxicating flavour. One day, if I can sneak through the mess of his backyard patio, I might take a photograph or two of that syrupy stuff that the Devil himself would advocate. Perhaps only then will you, the reader, truly believe me when I say that this recipe is an inspiration of the original, but by no means will ever reach that same zenith of perfect product.
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In those long lost days as a fresh-faced, scruffy and scrawny wee cherub of those distant childhood years, I recall that any time that salad was served on the table it was prepared in such enormous proportions as to almost compete with the main meal. My grandmother would select the choicest of tomatoes from a mound of equally appealing, tender and firm-skinned fruits, slice one quarter for me to sample (and be sure it was of my approval) and use the remainder for the salad. To this day, I believe she guards some divinely inspired method for preparing fresh produce and some secret number of stores she visits to gather only the cream of the crop. Today? It’s a sad truth that I can no longer revel in those same wonderful flavours from yesteryear, but at least this recipe can stand as an ode to that basic regime and perhaps inspire me to evolve the side dish for the tastes of the next generation of family.
In keeping with the traditions of good style and edibility, I believe a salad should follow a few simple tenets to ensure the hungry visitors came back for seconds: always mix up an eclectic medley of colour, don’t be sparing with the olive oil and vinegar and never subject the tastebuds to old ingredients. Forget those horrific visions of heads of lettuce at the supermarket, which look as though they have been submerged in several months of cryogenic preservation. Be sure to give this salad a stir only when you have the finest of fresh ingredients on hand, or else leave it lingering upon your curiosity.
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Sadly, there are so very few occasions when a visit to a restaurant envelopes your senses in a perfume of contentment and delight that the scents actually cling to you long after you have departed. Of course, we can make an exception to a chilli mud crab or a platter of oysters that dominate the upper echelon of restaurants (and refuses to depart their scent from your fingertips no matter how many times you scrub), but what about everyday eats in the Downtown region of your city?
As working hours become longer and cooking at home seems a less desirable option, it’s becoming increasingly commonplace to substitute the home-cooked meal at the dinner table to be replaced with quickly prepared and filling servings from a local outlet. Unfortunately, due to this excessive demand by many busy workers, somewhere along the time reel that yielded many talented and original artists of the pan, restaurants of a regular influx of customers perhaps decided that they should lower their standards and start offering substandard flair and passion to their customers — your meal is finished and the aroma of the cooking departs from your senses soon after.
But before we raise our voices against the failing standards of restaurant service and food (which is not the focus or the opinion of this post or its writer), it’s important to be mindful of operational and food costs, wages and the high levels of stress that inevitably arrive with a variety of customers who step through the door. Running a restaurant in any place or under any circumstance is never an easy thing, but thankfully there are still a variety of quality restaurants who boast the freshness and passion of their chefs that is continuously embedded in their products — and thankfully again, great street eats are much easier to find than you might think and are not going to cost you an arm or even a leg.
One such restaurant opened my eyes (and made them water soon after: was it the onions or the chilli, perhaps) and tantalised my nose and ears (both of which also became saturated with stimulation) to a fresh concept in my mind. Bassim Korean Barbeque in Sydney’s inner-western suburb of Strathfield is one such exemplar of consistency in quality, excellence in service and value in portions serving and most importantly, a healthy and colourful variety of options to suit all tastes.
For many of us, nothing quite compares with a cold beer and a hot grilled steak or juicy catch of fish during the midst of a summer day lunch. And although the vegetarian diet has received a lot of praise in recent times, many of us are still afraid to integrate more wholesome alternatives in our diet to supplement a primarily carnivorous lifestyle.
This charmingly festive dish is not only aesthetically pleasing with its eclectic medley of colour and firmness but suits perfectly with all other salads on the table and has a wonderfully sweet and nutty taste and texture to support the dense proteins on your plate. On the nutritional side of things, beans are naturally high in plant protein, are a good source of fibre and iron and have a profoundly beneficial effect on stabilising blood sugar - you feel fuller after just a small serving.
Vinegar: is there anything it can’t do? It starts raging fires in craftily wielded skillets over a once placid flame, flavours once flavourless salads and sauces, in some cases can be used as a household cleaning product and is frequently utilised in its plight in the works as a wonderful preservative alternative to salt that has lasted throughout the ages.
Truth be told, your sour grapes make a great flavour to crepes (rhyme unintended) But have you ever heard of the uses of apple cider vinegar in a broad variety of roles around the house, from disinfecting grazes and stirring cocktails to a fundamental role in dieting?
Personally, such an idea is as foreign to me as the notion of flying saucers dripping with spaghetti, but in the light of a naturally inquisitive nature, I decided to see just how useful it really can be.
Fleas and ticks beware, gout and sickness be fair, shine and lustre come back to my hair, night frights and boogeymen return to their lairs and best of all, calorie busters come to task with one of the more interesting variety of uses from a single product.
So if you haven’t already, see what thousands of hits search engines yield to this simple product that has ailed us since (and possibly even before) the earliest stages of ‘Modern Europe’. In the meantime, I will continue to add to my ever-growing vinegar library on the kitchen bench.
