Hot pepper in all variations has become an essential ingredient of modern cuisine. 

In our new series "Spice Up Your Life" we will show you our interpretation of hot and healthy food creation.

We will start with one of our favorite treasures: homemade chili oil.

Homemade Superhot Chili Oil

If there is an easy and smooth way to spice up your life, then it´s surely using an ecological, fruity and highly concentrated chili oil.

As always homemade stuff provides an extraordinary quality. You decide what´s inside.
While many prefabricated products contain additives that can seriously damage our health, natural and self-made treasures provide us with 100% valuable nutrients. 

Chili Oil Recipe

1. Select the hot peppers you want to use for your oil.
   Take into account that the coloring, heat and flavor of the pods will define the final appareance and taste of your oil. For our superhot version we used red colored and especially hot varieties of the type Capsicum chinense. 
2. Take the seeds and the placenta out.
   The placenta is usually of a paler color than the pod itself. That´s why leaving the placenta in would lead to a less intense coloring of your oil. 
3. Dry the pods.
   We use a classic drying unit (dehydrator). Sun light is not recommended since the pods would considerably lose their coloring.
4. Pulverize the dried pods.
   Pretend to produce a fine-grained powder. We have a food processor from Moulinex that works perfectly for this purpose.
5. Mix the powder with oil.
   You need aproximately 40g of chili powder for 1 liter of oil. Pretend to use a high quality olive oil but don´t use the "virgin" type. It provides a strong taste of its own that would dominate the chili oil´s flavor too much. Use a hand blender to mix the two ingredients.
6. Let the mixture stand and then mix it again.
   During aproximately two weeks you should repeat this procedure. Mix it with your hand blender and then leave it for 24 hours again. Remember that you shouldn´t expose it to sunlight in order to not impact the coloring.
7. Screen it.
   Try to not move the sediment which has been accumulated at the bottom of the container when screening the oil through a sieve. Afterwards pass the oil through a filter or a gauze in order to keep out even the little pieces of the sediment. Only like that the oil will be as clear as it should be. 
8. Enjoy it.
   That´s surely the most important part of all. One of the big advantages of chili oil is that the heat can easily be dosed. Depending on the hot pepper varieties you chose (point 1) you may need only some drops of the oil in order to spice up your meals. We use chili oil for almost everything: salsas, salads, pizzas, omelette and even cakes and cookies.

Chilli oil is perfect to give as a homemade edible present. Your heat loving friends would surely appreciate that. We enjoy giving it on Christmas, labeled with the friend´s name (and a clear advice to dose it carefully). 

We hope you enjoyed the first part of our new series "Spice Up Your Life".
Please feel free to leave us your comment or even share the article with your followers.

Happy Easter
Team @semillas 

Our shop: https://www.semillas.de/shop_en/index.html

PS: As we announced in our introduction post, steemit members that order in our shop will receive an extra package of hot pepper seeds. Just introduce the word "steemian" and your steemit nickname in the comments section when placing the order.