After harvesting most, and sampling a few of my conservatory grown chillies,
I am sure that they are much hotter than last year's crop. Could this be due
to the very hot summer? Mr Fothergill's "Fiesta" has been really impressive
with my two remaining plants still producing many fruits. I have often read
on this newsgroup different methods of preserving and using chillies during
the winter. I prefer allowing them to dry out naturally and storing the
whole chillies in screw top jars. A friend who is mad on "Habaneros" boils
them up, and when cold, blitzes them with added non-virgin olive oil before
storing the resulting pulp in screw top jars. Any chilli recommendations for
next year would be most welcome. TIA

MikeCT

On Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:48:13 GMT, "MikeCT" wrote:

After harvesting most, and sampling a few of my conservatory grown chillies,
I am sure that they are much hotter than last year's crop. Could this be due
to the very hot summer? Mr Fothergill's "Fiesta" has been really impressive
with my two remaining plants still producing many fruits. I have often read
on this newsgroup different methods of preserving and using chillies during
the winter. I prefer allowing them to dry out naturally and storing the
whole chillies in screw top jars. A friend who is mad on "Habaneros" boils
them up, and when cold, blitzes them with added non-virgin olive oil before
storing the resulting pulp in screw top jars. Any chilli recommendations for
next year would be most welcome. TIA

MikeCT




I hang them up and let them dry. They last all winter just like that.

The Habaneros I grew outside are much hotter than the ones I grew
indoors. The early ones were hotter that the late ones.

I saved a few of the seeds from a packet of Dorset Naga. It will be
interesting to see if the hottest chilli in the world will grow in my
window box.

--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software

EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
http://www.easynn.com

"MikeCT" wrote:

Any chilli recommendations for
next year would be most welcome. TIA

I once made a Habenero hot sauce very simply:

Something under a liter of cider vinegar in which a bunch of peeled garlic
cloves had been soaked overnight*
A big handful of dried Habeneros thrown in same.
Whizzed in the blender to make a smooth liquid.

That's it.

Hot, flavorful, all that stuff.

*So the garlic could be safely stored in olive oil; the acidity is needed
to avoid unpleasant results, like death from botulism.


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

"MikeCT" wrote
After harvesting most, and sampling a few of my conservatory grown
chillies, I am sure that they are much hotter than last year's crop. Could
this be due to the very hot summer? Mr Fothergill's "Fiesta" has been
really impressive with my two remaining plants still producing many
fruits. I have often read on this newsgroup different methods of
preserving and using chillies during the winter. I prefer allowing them to
dry out naturally and storing the whole chillies in screw top jars. A
friend who is mad on "Habaneros" boils them up, and when cold, blitzes
them with added non-virgin olive oil before storing the resulting pulp in
screw top jars. Any chilli recommendations for next year would be most
welcome. TIA

Freeze them as they are, no blanching needed.
Chillies get hotter if they are well watered during the two weeks before
harvest.
You can keep your Habaneros, little taste IME, I'll stick with Thai Dragon
(same heat more taste, that's proved too hot for a couple of local Asian
families I gave some too this year) and it grows well outside down here.

--
Regards
Bob H
17mls W. of London.UK

Bob Hobden wrote:
"MikeCT" wrote
After harvesting most, and sampling a few of my conservatory grown
chillies, I am sure that they are much hotter than last year's crop. Could
this be due to the very hot summer? Mr Fothergill's "Fiesta" has been
really impressive with my two remaining plants still producing many
fruits. I have often read on this newsgroup different methods of
preserving and using chillies during the winter. I prefer allowing them to
dry out naturally and storing the whole chillies in screw top jars. A
friend who is mad on "Habaneros" boils them up, and when cold, blitzes
them with added non-virgin olive oil before storing the resulting pulp in
screw top jars. Any chilli recommendations for next year would be most
welcome. TIA

Freeze them as they are, no blanching needed.
Chillies get hotter if they are well watered during the two weeks before
harvest.
You can keep your Habaneros, little taste IME, I'll stick with Thai Dragon
(same heat more taste, that's proved too hot for a couple of local Asian
families I gave some too this year) and it grows well outside down here.

My pepper sauce recipe, making about 15 fl oz.

4 sweet red peppers
16 chillies (infinitely variable, of course)
5 fl oz vinegar (cider vinegar is great, but any will do)
1 teasp salt.

Chop roughly, cook till soft (microwave is best). Blitz totally in
liquidiser. Cook again, stirring at intervals till it more or less
coats the back of a spoon, bottle. If on settling there's a layer of
free liquid at the bottom, either shake before using, or tip it out and
boil off a bit more water.

Beautiful colour, lovely taste: you may never put ketchup on a sausage
again.

--
Mike.

Usual advice is that chillies get hotter if stressed, ie, regularly allowed to get to looking sad and drooping before watering. The BBC trial appeared to confirm that: their chillies planted in the ground and not regularly watered were much hotter than the same varieties container grown in a greenhouse and regularly watered. My experience, with chillies container grown but placed out of doors against a hot sunny wall, is that my chillies were hotter early season when they were frequently thirsty than later season when nature reduced their water demand.

I find it hard to believe that a UK-grown chilli is really the hottest in the world, probably just the hottest one that has been measured. The "Dorset" Naga is, it is generally perceived, derived from some seeds taken from some Naga Morich chillis and grown in Bournemouth, ie a selection of Naga Morich rather than a separate variety. The Naga Morich is from Bangladesh, and is frequently on sale in Bangla groceries, though they often don't realise what they have. These groceries may be a cheaper source of seed/fruit than the Bournemouth people. Banglas use the Naga Morich in their cooking by introducing it very briefly to the food. Frankly I have no interest in growing something as dangerously inedible as that.

In general, varieties of chilli bred for their decorative effect, (Twilight, Marbles, Pretty in Purple, etc), are less tasty than those bred for culinary advantage. Most chilli varieties, including sweet peppers, are Capsicum annuum, and there is a range of flavours, eg the mirasols I grew this year have a distinct strawberry-like taste. Habaneros, birds-eye chillis and scotch bonnets are C. chinense, though like all chillis they are from the Americas not China. There are all sorts of other interesting chillis of culinary interest, such as rocotos/locotos (C. pubescens, easier to over-winter than other chillis, though possibly not so easy to germinate), ají-type chillis (C. baccatum, commonly used in Chile, Peru), etc, etc.

MikeCT wrote:
After harvesting most, and sampling a few of my conservatory grown
chillies, I am sure that they are much hotter than last year's crop.
Could this be due to the very hot summer? Mr Fothergill's "Fiesta"
has been really impressive with my two remaining plants still
producing many fruits. I have often read on this newsgroup different
methods of preserving and using chillies during the winter. I prefer
allowing them to dry out naturally and storing the whole chillies in
screw top jars. A friend who is mad on "Habaneros" boils them up, and
when cold, blitzes them with added non-virgin olive oil before
storing the resulting pulp in screw top jars. Any chilli
recommendations for next year would be most welcome. TIA
MikeCT

I grew some from seeds sent to me by a poster in this group, they have an
excellent flavour and did really well in a plastic greenhouse planted
directly into the soil, I harvested them last week, some pix he

http://i15.tinypic.com/2cy65vm.jpg

and

http://i9.tinypic.com/2a9ekxu.jpg

These are from 5 plants in semi shade and largely ignored since early August

I dried a dozen out, for seeds and also for cooking or grinding into powder,
the rest I sliced into one inch pieces and froze in a bag, seeds and all, I
believe they taste almost fresh once defrosted, pickling takes away all the
heat and drying takes away most of the flavour but not the heat, if you have
a lot, use a few methods and see which is best for you / your chillis.

"echinosum" wrote after...

Bob Hobden replied
Chillies get hotter if they are well watered during the two weeks before

harvest.
Usual advice is that chillies get hotter if stressed, ie, regularly
allowed to get to looking sad and drooping before watering. (Snip)

That's true too, but after you have stressed them then give them plenty of
water for the last two weeks. I might add that growing them outside in the
UK in the open ground and leaving them to their own devices most of the time
once flowering, as we do with our Thai Dragon, is stressful enough for them
to get rather hot.

--
Regards
Bob H
17mls W. of London.UK

"Phil L" wrote in a message:
snip
I grew some from seeds sent to me by a poster in this group, they have an
excellent flavour and did really well in a plastic greenhouse planted
directly into the soil, I harvested them last week, some pix he

I dried a dozen out, for seeds and also for cooking or grinding into
powder, the rest I sliced into one inch pieces and froze in a bag, seeds
and all, I believe they taste almost fresh once defrosted, pickling takes
away all the heat and drying takes away most of the flavour but not the
heat, if you have a lot, use a few methods and see which is best for you /
your chillis.
---------
Thanks for your reply. Have you tried growing chillies from 'Supermarket'
seeds? Two years ago I collected and germinated seeds from a bottle of
Sainsbury's dried chillies. The five plants grew very well indeed, producing
many fruits, however, not one of them ever turned completely red. I finished
up with chillies of varying colours, red, dark purple and green.
This I found interesting, especially as the chillies in the picture on the
bottle were all a bright red. My chillies also lacked any heat, whereas
those in the bottle were very fiery. Thanks also to Mike Lyle for the Pepper
Sauce recipe, I'll make some this weekend.

MikeCT

MikeCT wrote:
[...]
Thanks for your reply. Have you tried growing chillies from 'Supermarket'
seeds? Two years ago I collected and germinated seeds from a bottle of
Sainsbury's dried chillies. The five plants grew very well indeed, producing
many fruits, however, not one of them ever turned completely red. I finished
up with chillies of varying colours, red, dark purple and green.
This I found interesting, especially as the chillies in the picture on the
bottle were all a bright red. My chillies also lacked any heat, whereas
those in the bottle were very fiery. Thanks also to Mike Lyle for the Pepper
Sauce recipe, I'll make some this weekend.

Glad the recipe attracted you: I hope you like the result as much as we
do. It has a freshness of smell and flavour that commercial producers
can't hope to provide.

Chilli seeds seem to be difficult to kill. But the British climate is
rarely suitable for the ones you cull from supermarket produce, which
have usually been grown a few thousand carbon-belching food miles away,
so you can expect very variable results. This year I've kept only two
plants, from a Tesco bird's-eye I'd frozen and then found after
dropping it on the floor and stepping on it. I think they came from
Thailand. The plants and their yield were so different that it's hard
to believe they're from the same parent, but both were much slower to
ripen than the seedsmen's varieties, which should be adapted to our
conditions.

Historical note. The 1861 Mrs Beeton already notes the British
attachment to chillies, and mentions "English chillies", which shows
they were grown commonly enough in this country for people to be able
to buy them fresh. Beeton was writing for a privileged class, of
course. How lucky we are!

--
Mike.

Mike Lyle wrote:
MikeCT wrote:
[...]
Thanks for your reply. Have you tried growing chillies from 'Supermarket'
seeds? Two years ago I collected and germinated seeds from a bottle of
Sainsbury's dried chillies. The five plants grew very well indeed, producing
many fruits, however, not one of them ever turned completely red. I finished
up with chillies of varying colours, red, dark purple and green.
This I found interesting, especially as the chillies in the picture on the
bottle were all a bright red. My chillies also lacked any heat, whereas
those in the bottle were very fiery. Thanks also to Mike Lyle for the Pepper
Sauce recipe, I'll make some this weekend.

Glad the recipe attracted you: I hope you like the result as much as we
do. It has a freshness of smell and flavour that commercial producers
can't hope to provide.

Chilli seeds seem to be difficult to kill. But the British climate is
rarely suitable for the ones you cull from supermarket produce, which
have usually been grown a few thousand carbon-belching food miles away,
so you can expect very variable results. This year I've kept only two
plants, from a Tesco bird's-eye I'd frozen and then found after
dropping it on the floor and stepping on it. I think they came from
Thailand. The plants and their yield were so different that it's hard
to believe they're from the same parent, but both were much slower to
ripen than the seedsmen's varieties, which should be adapted to our
conditions.

Historical note. The 1861 Mrs Beeton already notes the British
attachment to chillies, and mentions "English chillies", which shows
they were grown commonly enough in this country for people to be able
to buy them fresh. Beeton was writing for a privileged class, of
course. How lucky we are!

--
Mike.

Hi

Anyone have a tried and tested pickling recipe for chillies?? I'd love
to pickle whats left of this years crop..any help appreciated..

Thanks

Barbara

www.all-about-tomatoes.com

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 Red Tomato wrote:

Anyone have a tried and tested pickling recipe for chillies?? I'd love
to pickle whats left of this years crop..any help appreciated..

I simply put them in vinegar, without or without other spices.

David

--
David Rance http://www.mesnil.demon.co.uk
Fido Address: 2:252/110 writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

David Rance wrote:
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 Red Tomato wrote:

Anyone have a tried and tested pickling recipe for chillies?? I'd love
to pickle whats left of this years crop..any help appreciated..

I simply put them in vinegar, without or without other spices.

I said at one point that I was going to try salting some like runner
beans; but I haven't actually got a round tuit.

--
Mike.

Red Tomato wrote:

Hi

Anyone have a tried and tested pickling recipe for chillies?? I'd love
to pickle whats left of this years crop..any help appreciated..

Thanks

Barbara

Put as many as you can fit into a jar, add vinegar and spices of your
choice, garlic maybe, or peppercorns, cloves, cardamons pods, basically
anything you like...beware though that the vinegar will take all or very
nearly all of the heat out the chillis within a month or two, they become
like pickled capsicums....I've simply sliced and frozen all mine, seeds and
all, they are easily removed afterwards, or left in for extra heat.

Just go to www.chillisgalore.co.uk all you need is there

regards

woody