A gardening book I got for christmas suggested chillies can be frozen instead of dried. Has anyone else tried this? I froze half a packet of supermarket finger chillies and despite the pods being a bit brittle when they'd defrosted, they were certainly as hot as when they were fresh.

It's a good way of keeping your chillies. I bought a large "clip fresh" box from the supermarket, with the rubber seal and everything. All I did was put excess chillies from the plants into it, and by the time there were a few in it any chillies put in would freeze almost right away. That kept me supplied with fresh chilli through the winter, and I still have a load left over.

Freezing destroys the natural body of the chilli, so when it is defrosted it's quite mushy. However, this is good for flavour (and heat) because you've effectively crushed the chilli and all the juices are much more freely released into whatever you're cooking.

I have access to dried ice at work and am looking forward to testing fast freezing, I think this will resolve the mushy defrosting issue...

Also have access to liquide Nitrogen but would end up loosing a hand "or something" knowing my luck

Colin

Any freezing, fast or slow, would surely result in tissue maceration, surely? Cells almost always burst when their cytoplasm freezes and expands. Maybe plant cells will be a bit different, having a cell wall, but then again if the vacuole is full of water you might see the same end result.

This will be an interesting test!

Always surprises me when it happens to my peppers, never done it with chillies though.
Guesse it depends on how fleshy they are.

Paul.

Using dry ice on your chillies sounds like fun. I know it's tempting fate, but if all the Rings of Fire I've got that are threatening to flower do provide fruit, I should have a glut. I'll definately try freezing some as well as pickling/drying others.