Amazing Grace's Ghanaian Chilli Chutney

Amazing Grace and me in front of our Outdoor Xmas tree in Saudi

The fact that our African Wise Woman, dubbed Amazing Grace for reasons that are obvious to anyone who meets her, utilises the term "chutney" to describe what is not comprised predominantly of fruits, vinegar and sugar is in itself a delightful testimony to the effects of language and cultural acquisition. Although the majority of the West Africa Coast is Francophone, including all the countries which border on Ghana, Ghana itself was a former British colony, and the word loaned from India finds itself loaned again in Ghana. The Oxford Talking Dictionary claims a chutney as a form of condiment, and a condiment as that which adds relish to food, and hence her label stands.

Ghana sounds like a wonderful country, if its people and food are anything to go by.  Apart from wise women and men like Koffi Annan, it abounds in magical fruits and products such as a palm nut oil that most resembles dragon's blood, all red and fiery with yellow whirls in its depths as it swirls.  The steamy, lurid-coloured tropical Africa of the original Tarzan graphic novels, Ghana lies only a few degrees north of the equator, so the temperature remains warm and humid throughout the year, especially along the coast where an entire entanglement of lagoons line up, higgedly-piggedly.  Yearly in summer, the festivals move from village to village, lagoon to lagoon, taking a week or more at a time.  Then is apparently the time to visit Ghana, a place that was so poor - despite gold, diamonds and agriculture -  that  according to Keith, Gladys' British husband, at the time they lived there, theft was rampant and bribes to government officials the order of the day.  Yet, Keith also noted that you would not be allowed to pass a stranger's door without being invited in, fed and given drink, even if the hospitality offered would cost them their monthly salary.  Keith considers Ghana a "marvellous, wonderful, magical country" and he remains enamoured and entraced by a country which he feels produces beautiful women, wonderful, magical people and superb 'sorghum' (mealie meal) beer. 

Herewith, without further ado:

Grace's Ghanaian Chilli Chutney Recipe

{My husband has devised a Hot-O meter as follows and his comments are found in the curly brackets:

01 - Extra hot Miss's Balls chutney  

05 - Tabasco

07 - Wasabi

08 - Nando's extra hot

09 - Nali 

11 - Ghanaian Chilli Chutney}

Time taken: 2 -3 hours.  About 20 - 40 minutes to prepare everything, depending on number of helpers de-stalking the chillies, etc., and over 2 hours letting the chutney cook in a deep frying pan on the stove, but if you quadruple the quantity, you may need to double simmering time. Also, how hot the condiment is will largely depend on the types of chillis used in its making. 

{Lasts 3-6 months, depending on the state of your stomach lining in the beginning!} 

Specialist equipment:

1. A deep frying pan, 

2. A blender.  Alternatively, you can go the old-fashioned route, find yourself an initially happy 10 year old Ghanaian girl child and require of her that she spend  the entire day rubbing the chillies between a small round rock and a flat rock with an increasingly large hollow or indentation in the middle of aforementioned flat rock.  By evening, her hands will be swollen and she will sit there with them held out in front of her, with the tears running off the ends of her cheeks since she can't rub them dry lest the chilli oils spread to her face.  Amongst such are numbered the former perils of Ghanaian girlhood, at which memory Grace laughs and laughs.  It is hereby furnished as evidence of the incontrovertible fact that there are times when the powerful forces of adulthood can ally against childhood, since it fell to the small girls' lot to grind the chilli paste.  Grace claims it to be good for the building of character. I take her word for it, since, after all: "Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of the alternatives" (Maya Angelou). 

3.3 kgs of chillis, freshly harvested from our organic garden, with brinjals

Ghanaian Chilli Chutney Recipe

600 g green chillies

3 bulbs large-cloved garlic {bulbs not cloves, the big thingies that contain the small thingies}

4 medium or 3 large onions

1 punnet (200 g) 'sweet' red chillies (for colour - otherwise the lime greeen colour looks a bit naff.)

Juice of 2 lemons

1 500ml bottle olive oil (you use a substantial proportion thereof.  In total it added to up to about 2 cups in total.)

2 tbls salt. 

Take stalks off chillies (Grace, of course, impervious to chilli-hands, flicked them off with her thumb-nail.  You can, however, use a knife). 

Peel onions and garlic. 

Wash the above. {Keep away from your eyes}

Place all in blender with a tiny bit of water initially so the chillies, onions and garlics don't stick to the works and clam them up.

Blend all ingredients until well blended, pieces should be 2-3 mm in size.

This is what it should look like:

Fresh chillis in a pot, as it cooks down, it's bound to clear the sinuses

Put in deep frying pan, on 5 (out of 6 on the electric stove) and cook until most of the water has evaporated.  Stir continuously.  We strongly advise you to keep the windows open.  Once most of the water has evaporated, add 8 tbs of olive olive.  Cook on high. 

This process continues over the next 2 hours or so and you need to keep adding oil when the pot is starting to look like it needs a bit more.  Stir to make sure it doesn't stick to the sides.  You may sit and enjoy your tea {/beer} at this time, checking the pot every 10 to 15 minutes or so to stir.

After about half an hour or so, whilst the mess is cooking away, add 2 tbs salt and the juice of two small lemons.  Let the chutney continue to cook until all the juices are out.  Cook until it looks like a porridge.  You may need to add more olive oil towards the end.  A thin layer of oil should cover the entire layer when it is done.  It is difficult even for experts like Grace to gauge precisely how much oil is required, she added oil about 5 times during the two hour process, thereby ensuring that the chutney pot resembled mud popping at hot springs, more dry than oily.   

The chutney is ready when it coagulates together, and pulls off the spoon: 

As you lift a spoon full of chutney out, it should coagulate and fall off the spoon 

At this stage, you would ensure that there is a layer of oil covering the chutney, which will help preserve it and into which oil the flavour of the chilli will exude.  If need be, add more oil.  Grace ended up adding about half a cup at this final stage. 

At some stage during the above, boil whichever glass jar(s) in which you are going to put the chillies thoroughly, in a pot on the stove.  Lift out with a set of braai tongs when the chutney is ready.  Obviously, the hotter the glass, the less likely it will break when you place the hot chilli mixture into it, and the boiling also serves to sterilize the glass too - be sure also to place the lids into the boiling water too.   

NB: No preservatives are used, so keep chutney in the fridge.  It makes a superb substitute for chilli powder, particularly in Gladys' delicious and quick Sierra Leone Peanut Butter Chilli Chicken. Since it is already cooked, it adds a wonderful depth of flavour to any dish, and the burn does not continue for long.

Keeping the same proportions, it should be possible (and one would assume a trifle quicker) to make a smaller amount, utilising: 200 g green chillies, 1 bulb garlic, 1 large onion, red chilli for colour and 2/3 cup of oil, juice of one small lemon and 2/3 tablespoon of salt.  However, this way you can make lots of presents for extremely grateful friends, relatives and work colleagues.

A decade after making the recipe originally, we harvested a mixture of chillis from organic vegetable garden, with two of the kids, and using the recipe, bottled ourselves some delicious chilli chutney, with quadruple the quantity, the time taken in cooking was doubled.

Ghanaian Chilli Chutney ready for bottling 

If you are a real pepper-head or hard-core chilli fan, you may find it perfect to eat with cheese on a Provita or other cracker - for lunch or even breakfast:

Amazing Grace's Ghanaian Chili/Chilli/Pepper Chutney with cheese on Provita