Lorry load of chillies, now what?

elsien

Courtesy of the lovely sunshine, my chilli plants have gone mad. And although the chillies are still green, having test driven one tonight, they are plenty hot enough for my tender palate, thank you very much.
So my question is, what's the best way of keeping them to use the rest of the year - freezing, drying? All suggestions (with clear instructions!) appreciated.

Leif

They don't get hotter as they ripen, but they do get sweeter, and the flavour changes, as per green sweet pepper and red sweet pepper. I rather like the flavour of green Cayenne chillis.

What you do with them depends on the species and variety. There is a massive variation in size, heat and fleshiness.

Chillis freeze well and keep ages, just put in resealable sandwich bags, and shove in the freezer. I find them easy to chop when still frozen, and I want to add one to a meal.

They dry well too, but you have to be careful as they can go mouldy inside if you dry them too slowly. Small ones can air dry in hot weather.

I have a fan assisted oven, and I heat it to 50C and shove whole chillies in till they are dry. I just lay them on the tray. Some ovens are not very accurate, so you might end up cooking them if you are unlucky. This works fine for small chillis such as Tabasco and Cayenne. Red chillis often develop a richer deeper flavour when dried. Fleshy pods are best halved. I have even oven dried Rocoto which are very fleshy as per sweet peppers. I have some that are 4 or 5 years old and still good. They are stored in air tight jars (recycled glass coffee jars).

I think I prefer dried, simply because they take no valuable freezer space, and they keep their flavour when dried.

You can also pickle them. Something I discovered in an Asian restaurant is thinly sliced green chill in salted rice vinegar. White wine vinegar works well. Leave them for a few days, and the heat goes into the vinegar, and you use the chillis and the vinegar as a condiment on food. Put some on the side of your plate with a stir fry. It's yummy. Leave them too long and the flesh degrades and goes too soft. And you probably have to heat the stuff to sterilise it if you want to keep it longer. Mexicans place raw vegetables such as sliced carrot, cauliflower and gherkin in vinegar with some chilli and salt, and I assume they leave it a week or so as the veg are still raw. I had that in a cafe in Florida.

Oh, and be very careful. If you do halve them, wear gloves. I once spent an evening deseeding Jalapeno chillis, and at the end my hands were bright red, and very sore.

Davesnave

Yes, follow recipes for pickling and subsequent storing of chillies very carefully. Do it wrong and you get a ticket for the botulism finals at your local A&E. :eek:

DaftyDuck

Rather OT (off-topic) and OTT (over the top), but I have an embarrassing confession.

Few years back I had far too many chilli plants, so stuck one on the windowsill of the downstairs back-of-the house loo so it ripened more slowly. One day before work, I went in there for a p ..... and ..... after about 30 seconds I was.. well, in pain, shall we say. A minute later, and I was in screaming, writhing agony, and I hadn't a clue what was causing it.

Then, through the tears and writhing and clutching (the latter being a distinctly bad idea) I realised. I'd pulled off several of the small no-hoper peppers with my fingers moments before unzipping my flies and...

So, whatever you do with them, don't store a plant in a loo!

I still cringe at the memory of the pain! Thank goodness for internet anonymity.

Leif

Davesnave wrote: »

Yes, follow recipes for pickling and subsequent storing of chillies very carefully. Do it wrong and you get a ticket for the botulism finals at your local A&E. :eek:

Yes, I did not make the point strongly enough.