time's up

the 2007 season is at an end. weather has got rather chilly and fruit is ripening very slowly, so time to clear up before the cold knocks on the door. last decent crops are a bunch of ajís amarillos and pancas. now it's down to only 6 plants, a bola pepper turning a shade of red hence getting a stay of execution, a frutescens okinawa shima that didn't fruit and will be pardoned & overwintered, and 4 pubescens (chilean, peruvian, mexican and venezuelan) that appear to have seen better days. i am thinking of abandoning them outdoors for christmas in the chance they might survive.

whitekoohii's 2007 chilli otaku narrative is then brought to a yearly close. if nothing else peppery relevant happens, the blog will recommence in january 2008 with the new season's sowing, this time in a bilingual version (english & spanish).

rocotos a la arequipeña

here's an illustrated stuffed rocoto arequipeña style recipe, submited by paiche in the foro guindillas.

ingredients (feeds 8): 8 rocotos, 8 potatoes, 400 gr minced beef, 4 tsp ground garlic, 1 tsp tomato paste, 2 onions, 4 eggs (2 boiled), 50 gr ground roasted maní (peanuts), 2 tsp raisins, 200 gr fresh cheese, 1/2 cup milk, chopped parsley, cumin, sugar, salt & pepper, 2 tsp ground ají panca.

preparation: slice rocoto tops (and keep as they will be used as lids). remove seeds & veins and clean carefully. soak the rocotos in lukewarm salted water for three hours (or overnight). change water at least twice to reduce heat.

stuffing: heat oil in a frying pan and add finely chopped onions and ground garlic. when golden, add the minced beef, maní, raisins, tomato paste and stir-fry. when meat is done add 1/2 cup of water and cook for 10 minutes. add the ají panca, salt & pepper, parsley and cumin and cook for another 5 minutes. remove from the fire. chop up the boiled eggs and mix.

rinse the rocotos and place in a pan, cover with water, add a squirt of vinegar and 5 tsp of sugar and bring to a boil. remove rocotos from the water and let them cool. repeat three times with care as rocotos need to keep firm.

whisk the egg whites until ribbon stage, add the yolks, milk, a pinch of salt and mix. stuff the rocotos and place in a tray, together with the potatoes previously boiled briefly (papas sancochadas). pour the milk sauce over the rocotos, add a slice of fresh cheese and seal with the rocoto tops. cook in a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.

late crop

the pepper bush hid all these crops...

last orders

this fall has been very mild and sunny, which has allowed much chilli late ripening. despite day temps still being above the 20Cs, night ones threaten to start going below 0C. high time for a last crop and culling the plants before the cold finishes them off. then a brief respite before soon kicking off the 2008 season!

brixton

explored brixton market in south london (remember eddie grant's electric avenue?), renowned for caribbean and african food. most stalls sold chinenses of some sort and the sellers' replies were almost unanimous, "hot peppers from uganda". there were a myriad of immature/mature colours & shapes, which suggested a great deal of hybridisation. an old guy who sold me a nice hot sauce from barbados speculated that west indies peppers were out of season in the market and recommended to visit back in summer.
completely unrelated, had a déjà-vu feeling when saw that the sex pistols were playing at the academy... god save the scotch bonnet!

wild grove

the wild grove, an ornamental frutescens variety from mexico, is turning colours from greenish-yellow, to orange then finally red. a variety grown within the c2cpc seed replenishment project.

tohato

tohato, the japanese food manufacturer, is catching up on the jolokia business. one could have habanero snacks but now they've introduced the satan jolokia snack & habanero soup, nice!! check out their habanero page, which comes with a manufacturing video and even a spIce invaders game!

transparent

bought this one at a mexican grocery shop where they sell fresh chilli mix in bulk, imported from mexico. i bought a bunch and after a while they dried & shrivelled up. curiously, the skin of one of them has become transparent and seeds can be seen inside! unfortunately, i do not know what it is.

rocoto from chile

two years after sowing seeds i got during a trip to santiago de chile, the first 2nd year plant rocoto has finally matured (right in time as night temps have gone below 10C this week). as soon as a few more pods mature it will be time to rescue this peruvian rocoto relleno con carne recipe!

bangalore torpedoes

a bangalore torpedo is an explosive charge placed in the end of a long extendable tube, used to clear obstacles from a distance. its usage was famously depicted in spielberg's d-day landings picture saving private ryan. one does not need much imagination to work out why these peppers are called in such a way... the picture pays tribute to virtualpepper.org, whose demise was announced yesterday.

award

the slowest ripening award is shared by these two, a chile rocoto and an ají amarillo.

harvest

time to harvest! another sunny week helped the slow ripening. first one is an unknown brazilian chinense (or frutescens), nice and punchy apricotty taste. second is a white habanero. third is the fearsome naga morich. they have a very characteristic ripening, from top to bottom, leaving a yellowy band between the ripe/unripe parts.
all in all, a nice fall harvest. what to do with the nagas? probably use a one to cook some salsa and store the others to make some insect repellent for next season...

chillihunt intensifies

the trail went very cold... firstly, dewitt's fiery foods newsletter info request drew a blank. secondly, a message posted in a chiapas travelling forum was answered as follows: "El chile que se muestra en la foto, en Chiapas es nombrado chile blanco (no es siete caldos) no tengo alguna imagen de chile siete caldos pero lo puedes localizar en los mercados de Chiapas. Lo que puedo decir es que el nivel de picante no es tan alto como su nombre lo indica." (the chile shown in the photo is known in chiapas as white chilli (it isn't the siete caldos). i do not have any image of the siete caldos but you can find it in the markets in chiapas. what I can say is that its heat is not as high as its name implies). back to square one...

then, out of the blue the trail heated up with an unexpected email from johnny n. olsen (here's his malus rustika chilli web site), saying that he had grew a chilli paloma (pictured) in 2003 from seeds purchased at örtagardens plantskola in denmark. the örtagardens site describes it as an annuum that "Gulvit till orange-röd, ca. 3 cm, lite bullig men spetsig. Het till mycket het. Går bra att torka och mala. Sätter rikligt med frukt." (yellow-white to orange – red, about 3 cm, a little bumpy but pointy, hot to very hot. great for drying and powdering. Yields very well). despite the chilli matched the long-solís book description other than the purple patches, its origin needed to be ascertained. an email to örtagardens was quickly replied by rune brand: "We got the seeds from friends who traveled in Mexico 1993. They bought it in San Cristobal Chiapas and we have been growing it since then and its quite popular amongst our customers. Yours Rune". hurray!

now, i got a hunch. the chile paloma pictured sounds and looks very similar to another one called pico de paloma (pictured next). have found references to de pico de paloma in chiapas, tabasco & yucatan and long-solís describes the pico de paloma as chile de árbol... could all of them be related?

on the other hand, doing some more internet detective work, found a siete caldos hit in flickr from a guy called caracobar, looking 100% pubescens. doesn't say where it is taken but caracobar's album is full of pics from guatemala (confirming that rocotos are also called siete caldos there).

fall

fall is already here but weather is sunny and holding, day temps slightly above 20C and night ones around 15C. plants are full of peppers that are maturing slowly. picked up some late 7pods & congo trinidads.
1/2 of the big 7pod went into a chicken green curry for lunch, they really call them 7x for a reason. after deseeding these 5 fellas and washing hands, i must have inadvertently spread some capsaicin along my fingers. pain was rather unpleasant for a few hours. never deseed these beasts without gloves.

jaranda

the jaranda peppers are one of the varieties used to make pimentón de la vera (bittersweet kind). their introduction in the area goes back to the XVI century, when monks from the yuste monastery started cultivation from seeds brought from the americas.

dewitt's help

dave dewitt, editor of fiery foods and #1 chilli guru, has joined the quest for de siete caldos by kindly including the following request in his weekly newsletter:

"--Here's a chile mystery question. WK, writing from Spain, asks if the image below, a photo of 'Chile Paloma' from Chiapas, Mexico, is the same variety as 'De Siete Caldos', a Chiapan chile so hot that it can spice up 7 bowls of soup. I simply don't know the answer to this obscure question. Do any of you chileheads out there know? If so, email me here."

are these de siete caldos?

a while ago i found a reference for a mexican chilli called "de siete caldos" (seven broths) "named for the fact that just one is enough to season seven pots of soup...". my curiosity was awoken as i wondered if there was a relation with the trinidadian 7pod. googling around i found some interesting snippets of information, such as that for instance in guatemala they refer rocotos as "siete caldos" and that in quetzaltenango they prepare chirmol (a guatemalan sauce) with a mixture of coban, serrano, siete caldos, chiltepe, jalapeño, and other chillies, combined with tomato, cilantro and onion. nice!!
yesterday i got a copy of a mexican book entitled capsicum y cultura: la historia del chilli (capsicum and culture: chilli history) by janet long-solís. there is an annex with a chilli dictionary, which contains the following entries:

chile siete caldos. (chiapas) c.annuum. consumo verde y seco. de forma triangular, de color verde claro con manchas moradas. muy picante (green and dry consumption. of triangular shape, light green colour with purple patches. very spicy)
chile paloma. (chiapas) véase chile siete caldos (see chile siete caldos)

this time google provided a hit in a photo album page (desobediencia art gallery), where a chiapan traveller pictured a few bowls of paloma chiles. are these de siete caldos?

jalapeños

despite the wide range of chilli varieties grown this year, there is nothing that beats a good corked mexican jalapeño pepper.

spicy!

the first naga morich pod ripened in just over a month, must be the quickest chilli capsaicin development rate (you can see the deadly substance collecting in the pod wall bottom). licked the placenta and it was nuclear, surely really nice curries can be made with these...

jeromín de la vera?

i believe that one of the varieties from el valle de la vera (where the famous pimentón comes from) that i am growing this year corresponds to the jeromín variety, the one used to spice up the hot pimentón. seeing the pods develop, these remind me of some ristras i bought during a trip to the valley at garganta la olla, a lovely yet somewhat inaccesible town close to plasencia. the lady who sold me the ristras had them hung on her front door and let me know were botijillos (a "botijo" is a spanish clay recipient that keeps water cool despite sunny weather) she grew in her garden. could jeromín and botijillo be the same variety?

naga morich

the fearsome naga morich, spiciest pepper in the world faring over a million scoville heat units (see story). a little bit more to go to see if it lives up to expectations...

rocoto eldorado?

a combination of bloomig fertiliser and a 2-week spell of freaky cool weather in august have caused the rocoto plants to go back into action. the 2nd year chilean rocoto plant has quite a few baby pods whereas the 1st year peruvian plant has just a few tiny ones. finally the rubicon has been crossed, i hope...

7/4 pod

used a 1/4 of a 7 pod in a kerala malabar curry. even with only a quarter of the thing the dish was rather powerful so i guess what they say about the pod streching up to 7 pots is actually true!

wind

strong gusty winds yesterday knocked off all pots like bowling pins... spent all day clearing snapped branches, soil, leaves...

arriba a saia

from Brazil comes this arriba a saia (in portuguese literally skirts up, supposedly after the effect caused by ingestion!). a pimenta do cheiro (chinense) type, haven't tasted it yet but it displays a lovely creamy / golden colour.

yatsufusa

yatsufusa peppers are ready for picking, deseeding and used as a contribution for the C2CPC seed replenishment project.

thai speaker

found a thai speaker and this is what she had to say from what the vendor at wan chai put down in a piece of paper:
พริกขี้หนู แดง guinea-pepper ; bird-chilli prík kêe nŏo daeng
พริกขี้หนู เขียว พริกขี้หนู guinea-pepper ; bird-chilli prík kêe nŏo kĭeow
พริก ลาว Lao chilli prík laao

hong kong

just come back from hong kong, crazy east meets west place. hongkongese do not seem to be very big on chilli variety though. language problems were really hard to overcome so establishing the true identity of the chillies collected was next to impossible. the first two varieties come from graham street market (central, hong kong) and could be found almost everywhere. got the name of the small one of them written in chinese, my bet is that it is a chi chien or closely related. the big one is mildly hot. vendors said they come from "china" (go figure...)

these three come from a thai grocery store in tai yuen street market (wan chai, hong kong). the conversation between the street vendor and myself was really comical when trying to identify the chillies. the vendor was giving me the thai names and when i was asking her to write them down in english she was saying that in english they were called chilli, chilli and chilli! i could make out (phonetically) that the middle one is a prik khee noo, identification of the others will have to wait until i find a thai speaker who can read what she wrote down. in any case she mentioned that the hottest was the first one.

these last two come from fa yuen street market (mong kok, kowloon). the first one seems to be the same one as the one from graham street mkt. the second one is a thai one, but vendor didn't know the name. also got a dry chao tian jiao pod (facing heaven) in a sichuanese restaurant which i already had seeds for and seeds from an unknown variety in a vietnamese restaurant (they said they were imported from there). i tried asking for fresh chilies in a hunanese restaurant but the waiter misunderstood and got me a small plate of seedless sliced chilli in soy sauce... (delicious!)