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Recipe

Cowboy Candy — Candied Chillies and Onion

current situation: cowboy candy

Cowboy candy is normally jalapeños alone. This version has white onion and whole red and green chillies through it, which stretches the jar and gives you something to put on a burger as well as something to eat off a fork.

The method is not a pickle. The chillies are simmered in the syrup first and only then jarred, which is what makes them translucent and limp and candied rather than crisp and raw. Five minutes, no more — longer and they fall apart.

Gloves. Two pounds of chillies will find every cut on your hands and will still be there tomorrow.

Makes
4 pint jars
Hands-on
40 minutes
Simmer
5 minutes only
Best after
2 weeks

Forty minutes of work. It is edible immediately and genuinely good after a fortnight.

Cowboy candy jarred with onion and chilliesA single jalapeño hanging on the plant
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The chillies and onion

  • 2 lb red and green chillies — jalapeños, Fresnos, whatever is good (from my garden)
  • 2 large white onions, sliced thick
  • 1 red onion, in strips, for colour

The syrup

  • 3 cups cider vinegar
  • 6 cups sugar
  • 1 tbsp turmeric
  • 1 tbsp celery seed
  • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tsp mustard seed
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp salt

How it goes

  1. 1 — Wear gloves, and mean it

    Two pounds of chillies. Capsaicin does not wash off with soap and water and it will be on your hands at bedtime.

  2. 2 — Slice the chillies into thick rounds, some left whole

    Most in quarter-inch rounds, a few small ones left whole for the look of the jar. Keep the seeds — that is the heat you are paying for.

  3. 3 — Boil the syrup five minutes before anything goes in

    Vinegar, sugar and all the spices brought up and boiled hard for five minutes until the sugar is fully dissolved and it has thickened slightly.

  4. 4 — Chillies and onion in for exactly five minutes

    At a simmer, not a boil. They soften, go translucent and the green ones darken. Set a timer — at eight minutes they start collapsing.

    pro tip — They look under-done at five minutes. They carry on softening in the hot syrup in the jar.

  5. 5 — Lift them out into jars with a slotted spoon

    Packed in tight, up to about an inch from the top, before the syrup goes in. Doing it the other way round means you can never fit them all.

  6. 6 — Boil the remaining syrup six minutes more

    With the chillies out, reduce it until it is noticeably thicker. This is what makes it amber and syrupy instead of thin, and it is the step most recipes leave out.

  7. 7 — Syrup over, lids on, cooled, into the fridge

    Poured over hot to cover completely. Cooled on the counter, then refrigerated — they keep three months cold. For shelf-stable jars, process them in a water bath for ten minutes.

  8. 8 — Wait two weeks if you can

    Day one it is sweet chillies in syrup. Two weeks later the heat has spread through the liquid and the onion has gone sweet, and it is one thing instead of several.

Current situation: cowboy candy. On burgers, on cheese, on everything. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.