Chili relish

[glen]

This is what I am doing with the Purple Thunder chili harvest.


This is about a lb and a half of purple thunder chili's.  Peppers are very large.  The best quality peppers I have produced so far.  They love the rainy season.  I am guessing on the weight.  The peppers are in a tub that is wide and has tall sides.  It feels heavy when I pick the tub up.  



Splitting and deseeding.  Gloves are being worn.  I used surgical gloves and some juice did get on my wrist above my hands and burned me up later in the evening.  Bercy has the right gloves on.  You actually need to wear surgical gloves plus the long gloves.  These peppers are easy to work with since they are big peppers.



We use one of those electric choppers to dice up the peppers.  Add white vinegar to the mix to help chop them up.  Once they are chopped up I transferred them to a medium sized pot.  Add sugar to taste.  I added 2 tsp of salt because this is a big batch of peppers.  I also added sugar.  I added about 5 tsp of sugar.  Not tablespoon.  Tsp.  I also added a bit more white vinegar to the pot.  This will be a relish.  Not a hot sauce so not too much vinegar.  Not even covering up the peppers.  


This is what it looks like.  I heated it up on the stove and cooked it for a little while.  Just bring the mix to a boil and let it boil for a couple of minutes.  This is a relish.  Not a hot sauce.  Use it on rice or soup.  Or, spoon a little on your eggs.  Spoon it on stew.  Use it as a table condiment.  This relish is spicy.  Not as spicy as Carolina Reaper.  But, very spicy.  I use Carolina Reaper to make the same relish.  Carolina Reaper has a more fruity taste and is not harsh at all.  Purple Thunder is less spicy and has no fruity flavor.  Purple Thunder is a Bhut Jolokia relative.   You can make this recipe using less spicy chili peppers.
Oh, when this pot of relish cools, let it sit on the counter until the next day.  Jar it up and put it in the fridge or freeze it to use later.

[rdback]

That's a very nice harvest you got there Glen. And the relish looks delicious, albeit very spicey. I bet the kitchen had a strong aroma going on that day lol.

[glen]

The peppers are spicy yes. I was able to make about 24 oz of relish, most of which went into the freezer. You should see the plants outside. Still fully loaded. I have to try and give them away. Freezer and fridge is also loaded with hot sauce and different recipes. A normal household only needs a few of these hot pepper plants. I have way more than I need.

[glen]

Hello all. This is a chili pepper sauce I found online. Its an Island style recipe. The man uses a manual grinding machine that is also very common in Panama for grinding things like field corn for making tortilla's or something that looks like hushpuppy's. I owned one for quite awhile. I need to buy another. Anyways, this recipe is sort of like my chili relish except that the man embellishes the recipe with garlic and cilantro. Also, he does not heat up his recipe on the stove. Its his belief that heating it up makes the recipe less spicy. Believe me, whether you heat it up or not its going to be spicy. Here it is.



This recipe is delicious.  You can use one of those food processors in lieu of the manual grinder to make the same recipe and you can use chili's of your choosing although the best chili's in my opinion are the super hot Bhut Jolokia or the Jamaican style scotch bonnet peppers.  Also, he says that it will last several months on the table.  Always keep this in the fridge.  It will only last 3 months or so in the fridge.  I know because I have had to throw some away.  You can tell when it gets rancid by its appearance and smell.

[glen]

Bon, you can buy one of those electric food processor's at Walmart for real cheap. See the machine in my photo's? I saw one yesterday in town here in Panama for 13 dollars. Then you can chop up your spicy chili's without touching them so much. And, those machines are real easy to use. They sell 2 sizes. The larger size is more money. I have both sizes. They both work just fine. You use whatever chili's you want to use. Its your recipe. You could even use sweet chili's if you wanted although I think that would be a mistake. Too bland. Cayenne's or Tabasco or Thai Hot would be ok for new chili heads. The man in the video is from Jamaica so he likes Scotch Bonnet peppers a lot which are typically yellow in color but he also likes other variety's as well. What makes his recipe greenish in color is the cilantro he adds to the recipe. I don't use cilantro in my recipes or even garlic. You have to grow the peppers and start experimenting with your recipes. It won't take long and you will know exactly how you like your pepper sauce. You can use different quality's of salt or vinegar as well. Traditionally white vinegar is used in most of these recipes but you can use any type vinegar you prefer.

[glen]

Bon. You can cut hot peppers with a knife on a cutting board. When working with real hot peppers you need to wear gloves though. You haven't graduated to the hot peppers yet. Tobasco's aren't real hot so you can work with them without gloves. A blender is fine for making regular hot sauce. Put your cut up peppers in the blender(a nice bunch). Blend them with vinegar(a few cups of vinegar). Puree them real good. Add salt. Start out with a teaspoon. Taste it later to see if it needs more. Pour this mixture into a sauce pan. Heat it up to a boil for a while. Let it cool. Put the mixture in a different container with a cover. Let it sit on the counter top for a few days. Then strain it. Now you have hot sauce. Thank me later. I gave you the very most basic recipe. You can try different things with this recipe. Add garlic or ginger for example. Or, cilantro. Or, use your imagination. If you have good tasting hot peppers you don't need many ingredients in my opinion. The main ingredient is the peppers, salt, and white vinegar. You are making the hot sauce because not everyone likes hot pepper. It is a condiment that you can add to your food if you want it. Good hot sauce is a must have on the dinner table.

[heavyhitterokra]

Beautiful product, Glen!

[macmex]

Beware of working Tabasco without gloves. They may not qualify as super hot, but they're quite hot enough to cause someone trouble. Some people's skin is sensitive enough to capsaicin that handling these could cause a medical crisis, not to mention if they should touch their eyes or other sensitive areas. 

In case anyone should get into a capsaicin crisis, soaking in milk helps a great deal. My wife learned this in 1983, when she processed some Thai Hots and their capsaicin got through the gloves. She was in agony and ended up calling poison control. She reached a poison control agent in Louisiana who told her about using milk. It worked! I came home from work that evening to find her sleeping with plastic bags of milk on her hands!  

[rdback]

Sept 11, 2020 0:11:37 GMT -6 glen said:

Bon. You can cut hot peppers with a knife on a cutting board. When working with real hot peppers you need to wear gloves though. You haven't graduated to the hot peppers yet. Tobasco's aren't real hot so you can work with them without gloves. A blender is fine for making regular hot sauce. Put your cut up peppers in the blender(a nice bunch). Blend them with vinegar(a few cups of vinegar). Puree them real good. Add salt. Start out with a teaspoon. Taste it later to see if it needs more. Pour this mixture into a sauce pan. Heat it up to a boil for a while. Let it cool. Put the mixture in a different container with a cover. Let it sit on the counter top for a few days. Then strain it. Now you have hot sauce. Thank me later. I gave you the very most basic recipe. You can try different things with this recipe. Add garlic or ginger for example. Or, cilantro. Or, use your imagination. If you have good tasting hot peppers you don't need many ingredients in my opinion. The main ingredient is the peppers, salt, and white vinegar. You are making the hot sauce because not everyone likes hot pepper. It is a condiment that you can add to your food if you want it. Good hot sauce is a must have on the dinner table.

...and after you strain it, you can dehydrate the leftover "solids" and grind into a powder. So, for example, if you use cayenne peppers you would end up with a cayenne hot sauce AND cayenne powder that you can use in other recipes in the kitchen. Both will keep for quite a while.

If you don't already have a spice grinder, most  folks use an inexpensive electric coffee bean grinder. Be sure not to use it to grind coffee afterward lol.

[macmex]

I once used our coffee mill to grind up some peppers. Next batch of coffee... I had all to myself

[glen]

Many good points. I also stumbled onto this basic recipe for a habenero hot sauce. I am posting it to show another way to make hot sauce.

[glen]

Bon, if I lived near you I would bring you a huge bag of chili peppers. I have a problem now using my peppers. I have several gallon sized bags of peppers already in the freezer plus I have containers of chopped up chili's in vinegar in the freezer. The fridge area is full of different containers of chili recipes. I have already started throwing away containers of chili's in vinegar in the fridge. You can see the color change when it goes rancid and then when you open it and you smell it you can tell it is bad. I don't know how long each container has been in the fridge. Now, I eat chili's and hot sauce every day but I cannot make a dent in it. When I am on my walks I have Bercy ask the neighbors if they want chili's. Most say no. They don't even know how spicy they are. The people here are only familiar with the locally grown Chombo pepper which is in the same family as Jamaican Scotch Bonnets. They are spicy but not super-hot. I did find one family that said they would take some peppers so they got a big bag awhile back. Problem is that my plants are producing a lot of peppers. They are ready to be picked again. Some of the oldest plants are producing a second full load of hot peppers as well. I will pick another gallon bag tomorrow and give them away to the same family. They haven't even eaten the first bag. The man mentioned that the peppers heat level exceeded his wildest expectations. He is only taking more because I insisted. So, that means he might not be able to use them either. These people just aren't acclimated to the taste of Bhut Jolokia peppers. Most Spanish people don't like them. Yes, the Mexican people like spicy food and love spicy peppers but that is not because of their Spanish heritage. They are also part Indian. The local Indian cultures love chili peppers so that is why they love hot peppers. If you visit Costa Rica or Panama or Columbia you will see that not many folks like it. Now, here in Panama we are a diverse population of people. Black men from the Caribbean islands immigrated to Panama back in the day to work on the Panama canal over a hundred years ago and they brought with them their love of the Jamaican Scotch Bonnet pepper. They also brought seed. So, there is a segment of the population here that likes good hot spicy flavor. This story might be interesting but it doesn't help me with the little problem I have which is finding someone to take my excess peppers off my hands. I have a bunch.

[glen]

This is a very short video of a type of chili called Dorsett Naga. So you will know, the Dorsett Naga is actually a Bhut Jolokia type pepper that was developed in England by a grower. He selected the finest seed each year and kept on growing the plant and it just got better and better. Peppers are scorchers I heard. Anyways this video shows how big the plant gets. Notice the branching. Plant get fully covered over. I have some large plants also but none of mine produce like this one does. The plant is older, probably 9 months or so. The plant looks tired like they all do when they get as old as this one is. Mine look like this also. When the plant was 5 or 6 months old it would have been magnificent!! Now, the amount of peppers the boy picked is just plain amazing but remember, this would not have been the first time this plant was picked. It would have been covered over at least once before this.

[glen]

I grow hot peppers for fun only. If I was doing it for my own use in the kitchen I could grow 2 plants and have plenty. The problem is that there are so many variety's and they are all different colors and different shapes etc. And, they are absolutely beautiful! For the moment I am having fun growing so many different variety's. Eventually I will settle down with it and grow only a couple of plants. Its hard to decide on one variety to grow. I have some really good variety's. But, no one eats them except me. Its the same thing with the okra. I could grow a row of okra right along the road side and not one plant would ever get molested. Except maybe by the goats that are always in the road trying to make a living. I am sure they would try them at least.

[macmex]

Hot peppers are so beautiful and I LOVE to grow them. Being an adopted Mexican, I also love to eat them. Of the hot ones, I only have Chile Rayado going this year, and it got blasted by blister beetles. I don't know if I'll get any fruit at all. I bet I have 10 years worth of dehydrated hot peppers on hand, but still, not having fresh makes me "twitch." Wish I could just stroll over to Glen's house and pick up a bag or two!

Next year, no matter what, I will grow my beloved Murupi Amarela as well as Chile Rayado. Though it's not hot, Ajicito has found a home with me too. Need to get out there and pick them now. I spotted red last night. I hurt my leg at work back in August and have had trouble walking any distance.