I've been making a chili oil and green onion oil for my friends for months with a lot of interest in buying. I want to start selling it at farmers markets & stores but want to ensure it is properly preserved. Can anyone advise on how to do so? How can I find the expiration date?
Preserving culinary oils
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I think you've got a wide berth of possibilities but what's above seems pretty restricted. What you are listing above sounds like a pretty straight-forward Midwestern American chili. It has the features of the standard chili spices, beans and tomatoes, with a nice variety of meats.
As @Cold suggests, beets would be great to add for their sugar content. However, there are quite a few American recipes that utilize potatoes, so you might seek those out. Are there other vegetables to substitute that you recall as more native? Other beans maybe? How about caraway, dill, chervil, tarragon?
Vodka would seem like an easy route to go to appease the indigenous aspect, but I don't think it would yield much results in terms of impacting the flavor; especially in the context of the extant chili recipe. Unfortunately, I can't see the benefit of buffeting vodka against the flavors of cumin, coriander, clove, let alone hot peppers. On the other hand, Russians produce some amazing beers (I am a big fan of Baltika), and I would recommend looking into switching to a lager flavor or Imperial Stout as I mentioned above.
But for real, my spin would be to approach this from a Solyanka point of view (which would definitely give you ceiling room to try incorporating Medovukha); or really any of the other amazing cold Russian soups. Or perhaps try to incorporate mini dumplings like Pelmani, mini Kotlety, or use Shashlyk-style prepared meats for the chili. I would also consider trying to get some lamb in the recipe, in particular at the expense of the chicken.
But don't forget, chili is all about what you want to put into it (<-- self-promotional plug); not what the standard template lists.
- The romantic version of the American myth about chili (in particular, Texas Red chili) frequently revolves around Cowboys planting peppers and onions on their most traveled roads. They would be carrying dried meats and, at night under starry skies, use kettles to cook the stew that became known as chili.
- What kind of story of Russian kindred spirit do you want to weave with your chili?
Pasta freezes well if you do it right. In fact, I know of a very famous Italian restaurant in NY that freezes their pasta which they make fresh everyday. They cycle through new pasta every three days and they serve A LOT of pasta. The chef dared me to tell the difference. And he's right. 99.9% of people can't tell.
To freeze, bundle into small amounts (e.g. wrap around your hand), enough for single servings. Put on a tray, with a little semolina flour or cornmeal dusted underneath (to prevent sticking). Keep each bunch separate, they shouldn't touch. Put into freezer. Once frozen (few hours), transfer to a ziplock freezer bag. It will keep for several months, but I'd eat it within one month.
To use, dump straight into boiling water. Make sure you have a big pot of water at a full boil (because the frozen pasta will drop the temperature more than unfrozen). Stir immediately.
This works very well.
Best Answer
You don't realize it, but you've asked a hot-button question. Expect to get lots of comments about botulism, etc. This is a result of a report a few years back about folks getting botulism from homemade garlic oil. I'll keep my answer practical.
First, depending on where you live, your state, city, county, or other regional government may already have health codes for infused oils. You need to research these and follow them; regardless of the actual safety of your oils, if you don't follow the rules you could be facing a hefty fine and a court order to never sell food products again.
Second, contamination of infused oils by anaerobic bacteria (of which botulism is only one) is a real danger, so you need to treat your oils to prevent it. These methods include dehydrating the seasonings before adding them to the oil, acidifying them, or even pressing out the oils from the seasonings and using those instead of the whole seasoning.
You can also make the oil safe through pastuerization. Heating the oil (ideally dehydrated first) up to at least 121C/250F for 4 minutes or more should kill even botulism spores (the hardiest of the anaerobic bacteria). You need to make sure the water is gone from the solids before you heat the oil, which means either using dehydrated seasonings, or straining out the solids and then pasteurizing the oil. Also, depending on the type of oil you use, this pastuerization may harm its flavor; certainly unfiltered extra virgin olive oil will change flavor if heated this way.
Hope that helps, and good luck with your new business!