MACEDONIAN CHILI PEPPERS RELISH

 
This is the favorite winter relish of my dad. He prepares these small peppers every September and starts eating them when winter comes. You can combine them with every lunch to improve the taste of your meal and spice it up a bit. This kind of peppers are chili but not too much, mild.
This recipe is in the family for many years. I take 1 bottle of peppers from my dad every year - that's enough for me :)  


 Ingredients:
  • 4-4,5 kg small chili peppers
  • 4 liters water
  • 1 liter white vinegar
  • 13 tbs salt
  • 1 sachet Vinobran preservative (Potassium metabisulphite (E224))  (10 g)
  • 1 sachet food preservative (Sodium benzoate) 5 g
Preparation:
  1. Mix water, salt and vinegar in a larger pot. Mix until salt is dissolve. Add both packages of preservatives and mix.
  2. Wash well peppers and put them in suitable plastic container. We used plastic bottles this time. It can be a little slow process of filling the bottles since we used bottles with narrow opening and we put the peppers inside one by one. So you can search for bottles with wider opening or a small plastic barrel.
  3. Pour the mixture into the bottles and fill them till the top. Close well the caps. If necessary make some more salty mixture: for 1 liter of water, add 250 ml vinegar and 2,5 tbs salt.
  4. Keep the bottles on a room temperature for 7-10 days. After that period, you'll see that the bottles aren't filled with water till the top because the peppers soaked some of the liquid. Prepare some more mixture and fill the bottles till the top. Thus prepared peppers, will stay yellow and beautiful for a long time.
  5. Then keep the peppers in a cold and dark place (basement). Normally, they'll be ready to be eaten in a month, depends on the room temperature. Warmer places speed the process of  souring.