Here's an interesting article on why we eat chillies.  It claims that there is little evidence that long-term exposure to chillies or age have an effect on our sensitivity to them  - plus other interesting findings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/14/chilli-hot-food

I've just uploaded this very interesting article from the Chile Pepper Institute - a detailed report on the study of the Bhut Jolokia chilli.

Bhut Jolokia is crowned king

How to identify your chilli plant species

If you are given a chilli plant of misplace a plant marker, this guide should help identify the species:
Pubescens (e.g.Rocoto)

• - Seeds Black

Annuum (e.g. Jalapeno)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla White (no spots)
• - Flowers solitary per node and filament NOT purple

Baccatum (e.g. Aji)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla has spots

Chinense (e.g. Habanero)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla white or greenish, no spots
• - Flowers two or more per node and filament purple

Frutescens (e.g. Tabasco)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla greenish, no spots
• - Flowers solitary per node

January at the chilli Farm

A new year and we’re nearly done with clearing out the polytunnels all the 2009 plants are now in a big compost stack.  Since we don’t plant the tunnels again until mid to late April, we won’t start sowing seed for a few weeks yet.

We have more new chillies to try this year (see the new offerings on the seeds page) including a wider range of ornamental chillies. We also hope to grow a lot more Bhut Jolokia this year so we can expand the ‘Extreme’ range of products.

We are looking to build a second building this year to be a dedicated farm shop and chilli-café, so that will take most of our spare time. The plan is to open it before the summer school holidays - I’ll post some pictures when we get going.

Lots of snow here and there today (12th Jan 2010), but the weather man said South West winds return to the area for the first time since before Christmas, so that should make doing business a bit easier.

During January we usually spend some time thinking of new products to add to the range, so if you have any must-haves, please drop us a note.  So far, we are looking to extend the range of chilli-growing kit this year, and will be adding a lot more information to the web page on recipes - particularly, more suggestion on using dried chillies.

Story of the Bhut Jolokia - short version!
In the year 2000, reports of a very hot chilli started coming out of  Assam, India. The Bhut Jolokia was reported as being twice as hot as the previous record holder, the Red Savina Habanero.

These initial reports were treated with a lot of scepticism in the chilli community. It took a trial carried out in 2005 by the Chilli Pepper Institute to convince folk that this chilli was the new king. In this trial, the CPI measured the Bhut Jolokia at over 1million Scoville Heat Units.

The DNA tests performed showed that the chilli was mostly a Habanero, but had some contribution from a chilli related to Tabasco.

A chilli with many names.
The same chilli was being called several different names: Bhut Jolokia (ghost chilli); Bih Jolokia (poison chilli) and Naga Jolokia (warrior chilli). When the CPI published its results, they came down in favour of the Bhut Jolokia - the name adopted by the Indian company Frontal Agritech, who now hold the official record.

We have been working with our friends at THE SEED Co. on a Chilli Oil using their wonderfully flavoursome cold pressed Rapeseed Oil. I have tried a few Rapeseed oils now, and the one from THE SEED Co. is the best I have found for flavour.  Find our Rapeseed Chilli Oil in our online shop from today.  Some good bread and a small bowl of this oil is a great start to a meal.

The Seed Co. (www.theseedcompany.co.uk) are Based in Sherborne, Dorset and they produce COLD PRESSED RAPESEED OIL made from a single variety of seed that's been chosen by them for its flavour and versatility.

We steep the oil with a blend of our hot and fruity dried chillies for a month or two to produce this chilli-flavoured oil - great for spicy salad dressings, roasting and frying. Full of naturally occurring Omega 3,6 and 9, and vitamin E.  This oil has the best flavour of any Rapeseed oil we have tried - nutty and very moreish - some good bread and a small bowl of this oil is a great start to a meal.

Growing Chillies From Seed. If you are thinking of having a go at growing chillies next year, here is a shopping list to get you off to a flying start.

Shopping List. A heated propagator or warming mat is a valuable tool for germinating chilli seeds - they like it hot! At the farm, we sow the seeds thickly in a soil-based seed compost and place the pots in heated propagators - we expect to see an erruption of shoots between 6 and 10 days later - some do take longer. A Jonh Innes soil-based seed compost is a good start for them. Plant labels, a water-proof marker pen and a few plant pots, and you're all set - apart from buying some seeds.

Recommend Chillies. Here is a list of easy-to-grow varieties that we have always found very willing. It tends to be a good idea to stick to well-known varieties - you will have a better chance of starting with good quality seed. My six-of-the-best would be:

• Santa Fe Gande - a 'yellow' chilli that ripens to orange - good for salsa 
• Cherry Bomb - ripens early and the fruits look amazing
• Hungarian Hot Wax - usually eaten green (or yellow in this case)
• Numex Twilight - a rainbow of colour and hundreds of 1"-long chillies.
• Ring-of-Fire - a very product cayenne type.
• Jalapeno - probably the most well know chilli - usually eaten green

What Else Do You Need? Chilli seedlings can get a little too leggy if grown-on after germination on a windowsill. A greenhouse is ideal, but you can also use a mini plastic greenhouse (less than £20) or a cold frame. 

What Next?
You'll find tips on growing from seed and general plant care here. We also send a printed copy of instructions with our mail-order seeds.

What do I do with all these chillies? This is the time of year when you may be wondering what to do with bushes and bushes of chillies: eat them all, give them away/sell them, preserve them (vinegar and/or sugar), freeze or dry them. This entry is about drying them - dried chillies are really marvelous for all sorts of reasons.

Flavour and smell: A chilli can conjure flavours from thin air when they are dried. The most common flavour that develops from a 'large red' chilli is that of raisons - some say Christmas cake. Visit our farm some time and ask if you can stick your head in a tub of dried mixed red chillies! We often invite customers to have a sniff, and they are always amazed. We dry another chilli (Aji Limon) that has a very strong citrus flavour when fresh, but when you dry it, it looks, smells and tastes like little dried bananas (only hot)! To really appreciate the range of flavours from dried chillies and how they can be used, Mexican cuisine is the place to start.

Asthetics: If you dry chillies slowly, i.e. with a gentle heat, they will look really alluring: the dazzling orange of dried Habaneros, the ruby-red and 'leather' texture of Ring-of-Fire cayenne and the iridescent sparkle of dried Numex Twilight! We have a few photos in our library of dried chillies with back lighting - you can see the veins and seeds inside, and they look really special. Dried chillies can be used in all sorts of decorative ways - we have supplied dried chillies for wedding button-holes, for example. They look great at Christmas too.

Which chillies to dry? Some chilli varieties dry better than others. Of the chillies we dry, Ring of Fire (cayenne type), Aji Limon, Habanero and Piri Piri are the easiest. All of these types have reasonably thin walls to the fruit. Other types can be difficult to dry well (i.e. slowly): Jalapeno and Santa Fe Grande - both of these have thick flesh and are more commonly pickled or smoked and then dried.

Chilli drying techniques. You will need a warm, dry, well ventilated atmosphere for chillies to dry well. Too much heat will scorch the chillies and give them a bitter flavour. Not enough ventilation may result in the chillies rotting and leaving you with a gooey and very smelly mess. Too much humidity, and the chillies will dry very, very slowly. We find that a temperature about 40c-50c is about right. To generate enough ventilation, you may need to use a fan. The chillies should be treated to the best circulation of air you can manage, so spread them thinly (particularly larger ones) and check them regularly to make sure none have gone gooey.

Drying chillies in the home. When we were starting out with the chilli farm, we used all sorts of location around the house to dry chillies: over radiators, over a Rayburn, in the warming-oven of the Rayburn and on trays set over light bulbs. When we had a lot of chillies to dry at once, we added a desk fan to the setup to help with ventilation.

Storing dried chillies. Keep them in an air-tight container (or at least 'moisture-tight') and away from strong light. They will lose their sparkle eventually, but will retain their flavour and colour much better than ground chilli powder.

Peanut butter that doesn’t glue your mouth shut: Mix some jelly (I used our chilli jelly of course) with peanut butter – I went for about 3-parts peanut butter to 1-part chilli jelly - mix together well with a fork, and spread on some toast or in a sandwich.

The PB&J combination is big in the USA or course – on Wikipedia, a 2002 survey is mentioned which claims that the average American will have eaten 1,500 PB&J sandwiches before graduating from high school – see, I told you they were easier to eat.

There is a brand called ‘Smucker’s Goober’ (interesting name) that sells : PB&J in a jar. I think we’ll stay clear of adding that to our range for now (too many possible issues with using a nut ingredient).

PB&J should keep well mixed together, so I guess just find an empty jar and fill it with whatever mix of the two you like.