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them if you are not going to keep them whole and remove the seeds and pith . Place them in the jars and in each jar put two to three peeled garlic cloves , two to three whole black peppercorns and three or four olives . Put some vinegar in a non-reactive pot and bring it to a boil . You may use apple-cider or white vinegar . Cover the peppers with the boiling vinegar , leaving a couple of centimetres of headspace . Use a chopstick to poke around and remove the air bubbles . Wipe rims clean and put on the lids . The lids seal if you put them on while the vinegar is still piping hot . Pickles are usually left to steep for a couple of weeks before you open a jar . An indigenous South African variety of pepper is the small , red pepper from Limpopo commonly sold pickled pipless under the trade name of Peppadew . They are easily grown in the garden and can be eaten raw , or filled with cream cheese . Chillies can be preserved in
IN THE KITCHEN all the above ways , but they also respond well to drying . They can be processed in a biltong dryer . However , drying chillies indoors can be a simple matter of stringing whole chillies together by passing a needle and thread through their green caps , and hanging them in a warm , well-ventilated space for about two weeks . It ' s a good idea to finish drying chillies in a warm oven for about 30 minutes before packing them away in airtight jars . Once they ' re fully dried they should last a year or more . Use dried chillies in all kinds of soups , stews , salsas and sauces . If you want to rehydrate them , place the chillies in a bowl and cover them with boiling water . Let them sit for 20 minutes , and they ' ll be soft and ready to cook with .
Capsicum baccatum , the piquante pepper sold processed as Peppadew
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