While working in a German Sausage Saloon for a speciality butchery, there was a group of people who always asked for chili with everything.

So, as we were already selling pickled Jalapenos, which most of my customers found extremely mild.

I personally like a bit of spice in my food, even though most of my family does not. So, as I usual, I started to fiddle around and experiment with "keeping them satisfied".

I grew some chilis that were slightly sweet and had a very pleasant after-=burn in your mouth, as soon as you sucked in air, the after-burn kicked in.

I brought some of my dried chilies and ground them up at work. When the customers started coming in for there steak rolls, Bokwursts, and Kassegrillers (cheese grillers), I offered them a sprinkling of the ground magic dust.

This was the start, and pretty soon customers were asking for more, my stock of dried chilies was than depleted.

What to do, necessity being the mother of invention, or as it is said in South Africa, 'A BOER MAAK A PLAN' all said with a hard 'A' sound, translated "a farmer makes a plan'.

As the majority of the chili eaters were also fried onion eaters, the next step sort of jumped out at you.

So in my daily preparation before opening the grill for business, an extra step needed to be added to the daily routine.

After frying up the sausages and pre heating the oil for deep frying and cleaning up all the work surfaces.

I would chop the onions and chilies and partially fry them up. Place them on the side of the Baine Marie in a covered dish.

This was all very well, but the demand exceeded the supply and I would run out at the critical lunch-time period.

As I ran and operated the show on my own, it became a major production process, with customers waiting and wanting there food as soon as possible, another plan was needed.

So I reached the stage where I would have to be a bit smarter and have an abundant supply of the Chili without the sweat of running out at critical times.

The end result became constant and met a wide range of approval from my customers.

The best comment came from a customer who was on holiday, here in South Africa, from New York City. Her comment was that this is the best relish for a hottdawg, I write it as she pronounced it, that she ever had, and I should import it to the States.

So here it is, if anyone wants to do it commercially go for it and send me a cent for every jar sold, the rest is yours.

Ingredients

Onions - 2 for every 750ml glass jar

Fresh Chilies - 1 for every onion (mild) 2 for hot, 3 for goodly hot, 4 for insanity.

Sweet Paprika - 2teaspoons per jar

Pure ground medium chili powder - 2 teaspoons per jar

2 tablespoons freshly chopped Origanum per jar

1 cup of sunflower oil per jar

125ml cider vinegar per jar

1 teaspoon of dried garlic, or garlic flakes

Method

This is the fun part -

Clean and finely chop the onions and chilies, into very small pieces.

Place them into the jar, your jar needs to be about 90% fill. Then add the chili powder, parika, garlic, and origanum inti the jar. Mix the dry ingredients around..

Place the oil in a saucepan and heat it up, the desired temperature is the same as when you fry chips.

Remove from stove and using a funnel:-

First - place a metal spoon into the bottle

Secondly - slowly add the oil to the bottle with the onions etc..

A word of caution the oil will splutter, bubble and froth so handle carefully.

Add all the oil and then let the jar stand and cool down.

Once the jar has cooled down sufficiently add the vinegar, give the jar a good shake with the lid on.

Loosen the lid a half turn, place on a window ledge and let it cool down completely. Refridgerate overnight.

The product is ready. Happy eating.

If you like your relish sweeter add a sugar spoon of brown sugar to the vinegar.