Hoping for an Indian Summer

There's plenty of fruit beginning to set on the chillies but we still need sun to get it ripen. So, a little more sunshine would be greatly appreciated.

Loco

Padron

I manged to blow my head off with a plateful of Padrons the other day.  I endured a searing heat that had my eyes watering, nose running and about 20 minutes of stomach cramps.

Damn tasty though!

What is supposed to be a mild, sweet chilli with a 10% chance of being hot seems to consistently produce scorchingly hot fruit.  It's not just my plants either - the Padron plants that I gave to Claudio produce similarly hot fruit (although his chillies are significantly larger than mine).

Twilight

Hungarian Hot Wax

Yellow Scotch Bonnet

The Red Scotch Bonnet plant is beginning to set fruit as well although it's about a month behind its yellow cousin. Moving the plants outside has certainly slowed them down but with the windowsills overloaded and the constant aphid attacks, it was the best solution.

Explosive Ember

Explosive ember is a very pretty ornamental chilli with deep purple leaves and fruit.  It's a much more compact bush than the similarly coloured Orozco and I suspect would be better suited to a windowsill rather than Orozco's spreading habit.

Balloon

I'm gearing up to a chilli jam making session this weekend so I'm hoping for a few more fruit to ripen to add to the stockpile in the freezer. Hopefully I'll have enough to make a couple of batches of jam at different heats depending on people's bravery and spice tolerance.

Slow progress...

...it really is! Slowly the chillies are growing, slowly they're ripening but it takes the patience of a saint waiting for a decent crop.

For the forthcoming nuptials (yes, I'm getting hitched in a scarily-close five-weeks time) I've purchased a box full of miniature jam-jars and bottles to fill with chilli-related goodness. However, with the rate at which chillies are ripening in the inconsistent sunshine, I may be struggling to fill them all.

Thankfully, Claudio (the father-in-law to-be) has a regular production line of scorchingly hot Padron chillies on the go so I may have to make a special Galiciaian ex-pat sauce in his honour.

Padrons are supposed to be small, green and mild.  Not the way Claudio grows them!

However, all is not lost yet. The yellow scotch bonnet plant is doing well with half a dozen large fruit beginning to ripen. I'm particularly proud of this one as I grew it from seed rescued from a chilli bought at Sainsbury's. How's that for value for money, I got a tasty Carribean meal and a chilli plant for less than the cost of a packet of seeds!

The distinctive ribbed shape of the  Scotch Bonnet

I've had some success with my own Padrons with a steady supply of fruit. However, the superhots are still to make much of a showing with only flowers on the Black Nagas and not even any open flowers on the Chocolate Habaneros.

A reasonable crop of (slightly smaller) Padrons

It would appear that the mystery chilli seeds given to me by a colleague (previously referred to as 'Gino Chillies') are in all likelihood either Ballon or Friar's Hat. Now the plant has fruited it displays a healthy crop of the distinctive tricorn fruits.

Gino's chillies

Friar's Hat

Many of the other plants, particularly the Hungarian Hot Wax and the Cayennes have a good stock of green fruit, we're just waiting for the sun to give them a but of a boost and ripen them up in time for some wedding-themed hot sauces and jams.

Hungarian Hot Wax

Hungarian Hot Wax

The Loco plants are still producing a steady crop of small fruit

Cayenne

The late TrinidadScorpion, De Arbol and Cappa Conic seedings are thriving on the windowsill.

Chilli Chutney

Following the success of the Friar's Hat chilli jam (unofficially dubbed 'Frisky Friar') I decided to have another go at making a chilli preserve, this time aiming for something a bit more like a chutney but with a fruity flavour.

I rooted around for ingredients and put together what I though would be a winning concoction (actually it was just what I had left in the cupboard).

1 large sweet pepper.
1 ripe mango.
4 small onions.
8 cloves of garlic.
Juice of 1 lime
500g jam sugar
500ml cider vinegar
2 tomatoes (de-seeded)
8 Thai chillies
A handful of coriander
A tablespoon of grated ginger

The expertly chopped mango (not by me I must add)

The ingredients ready for the blitzer

The fruit and veg were thrown into the food processor and given a quick blitzing. Meanwhile the sugar was dissolved in the vinegar over a low heat.

The blitzed ingredients

The mixture was thrown into the vinegar and bought to a rolling boil.  The heat was then turned down and the mixture left to simmer until the quantity had reduced by half.

After an hour of boiling vinegar the house was quite fragrant...

Finally, after being allowed to cool the mixture was ladled into sterilised jam jars.

As for flavour, it's got a mild spicy heat from the chillies and a tang of coriander.  Meanwhile the ginger adds a lovely tickle of heat at the back of the throat.  It'll be unveiled to the (selected) public this weekend at a cheese and wine party so we'll get their verdict then. With the Frisky Friar I was so keen to share the jam I ended up giving most of it away to friends and family. With only four jars of this new concoction, then it's quite a limited edition. I may have to limit my generosity to just those with the highest bribes...