Taste report for Rocoto de Seda

It's Rocoto season!

After waiting for more than two full months my Rocoto de Seda finally turned to beautiful jellow.
Today I harvested the first one and couldn't wait tasting it.

The inside contains three "chambers" with large black seeds (black seeds are typical pubescens).

Carefully i put a piece in my mouth. HMMMM! Nice sweet like raisins, no not those sticky black things from the red box but raisins that are not ruined by sulfuring them.
(who invented the sulfuring? why ruin the lovely tast raisins have?)
I even tasted some banana.
After a few seconds the heat kicks in, aw! to much for me!
With the juices the heat spreads quick over my, lips, mouth, throat and stomach, everywhere.







Inspired by the raisin like taste I took what was over from the fruit, cut some raisins, added a little water and sugar and as finish some lemon juice.
Cooked it slowly for a few minutes. The rocoto and raisins did match indeed..its a sort of hot baklava...maybe try hot apple pie next time












Bart, thank you for letting me write on your blog!
Aldo

Taste report Aribibi Gusano

This worm like chilli has been one of the oddest ones I have seen last year. I got this chilli from a friend of mine in Holland as a must taste chilli, and a must see chilli.
He said the tip of it one could eat without a problem getting the full array of tastes it has. Now that is a greatly said but hard to define thing, because how long is the tip of it? This chilli has no tip, but a sort of like butt if anything. Then again its creamy yellowy appearance does make me wonder how dangerous this could be. So I bit the first bit of the top off, and it was great and really a mouth full of tastes. My son had one to, and did the same, no burn. So we both looked like, well how hot can it be and took another bite. . . . . .

So, this Aribibi Gusano is an odd pepper or chilli, weirdest form, creamy white to yellowish like when it is ripe. More strange, it has a list of possible names about an arm long. Scientifically we are talking about the Capsicum chinense Jacquin cv. 'Aribibi Gusano' but it is also known as Aribibi, Aribibi Gusano, Aji Gusanito, Habanero Aribibi Gusano, Aribibi Gusanito, Caterpillar Pepper, Aribibi Caterpillar, Arivivi Gusano and last but not least Turtle Claw. Now this chilli is supposed to be a chinense, but is also called a Frutescens or a Frutescens / Chinense cross. Now, have I lost you? Well only good as that is how I felt after doing a bit of extra research.

Now to make some clear, chinense is a part of the Capsicum family right? So all chillies are from the Capsicum family, and all peppers are too. The Peppers are from the part of the family called Annuum, so are called Capsicum Annuum. For instance you have the Cayenne chilli, scientifically it should be called Capsicum annuum L. “Cayenne” This scientific stuff would not seem important and sounds like jibberish but it is important. Most people like Annuum chillies and they are among the most used ones in the western world. The Chinense chillies are the group of chillies that bring the hottest ones in the world and have a specific taste that you that you may or may not like. People also call it the Habañero taste, but that isn’t really true. My wife doesn’t like the chinense taste in superhots and does like Habañero, and she is picky. . .

Sorry, this was a taste report?

Well, after the first bite, the second bite is overpowering to say the least. It had me and my son running for the milk and peanut butter. This chilli is hot, 150 K scoville easy, but has a matching taste to come with it for sure. It is very perfumy and very rich in taste. If you cut one open and leave it for half an hour, you will smell it throughout the house. It has a lot citrus and sweet wood like a taste that makes you remind of vanilla. The undertone taste that is in the Chocolate Habañero that makes it lovely is the upper tone in the Aribibi Gusano. It is very strong with its Chinense taste and scent, which you will find in the super-hot chillies. This makes this chilli about the most perfect chilli for people that like the taste of the superhots but do not want to go superhot with their food. Due to its size you can dose it very well. I pop 2-3 Aribibi Gusano in 1.5 Kg of Chili con Carne, and 5 minutes later my neighbour calls me he smelled it and if he can have dinner with us! Yes, all in all a chilli that deserves to be in the top 10 for sure !! I do have seeds available, so you can try them too!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Wild Chillies, chillies gone wild?

Wild chillies, chillies gone wild?

I have rambled a bit before about rather tasteless chillies.

And in fact, there are more than a few rather tasteless chillies, if you ask me.

Especially if you have been surprised with really good chillies that have a certain herbiness or flavour that amaze you.

Sure there is the difference between water grown chillies "hydrophonies", and the ones that have had a real life in soil. I love organic greens for sure, for they have much more flavour.

So as they are way too expensive for me, I grow them myself now.

In the years, since I moved out with my parents, I learned to cook and appreciate flavours.

My mom was not the best cook mind, so I had to learn from scratch.

Hard in the start, but the best way to learn I’d say.

But having others eat my food, and done more than a few taste sessions for wine, I learned that I have more than just great palate.

Capsicum Eximinum flower.

So I boasted to one of the lads at www.wildchilli.eu that I have great palate and would love to taste wild chillies.

That after I have noticed that none had a description of taste, and nobody did really seemed to know how they tasted. . . .

So I was challenged, and I do have to say I was surprised about the taste.

Really, in the wild chillies you can find the mother of tastes for all chillies and peppers.

First off, I got 3 sorts to taste, and wrote about it in a post.
A question of taste!! The readers loved it, and I loved tasting them.

I got loads of readers there, and got more and more chillies to taste.

Dried berries I had to taste, minute things, with loads of taste that surprised me.

I am picking 2 to describe and will tell you more about others in posts to come.

First off, was one that sounded great, the Capsicum galapagoense.

A species endemic to the Galapagos Islands, doesn’t that sound posh?

First taste is sweet and lovely, and a fruit like..
I would say bell pepper like, without the bitterness?
I loved it, so I licked a little piece from my hand, but it got stuck to my upper lip.
Got just a bit of direct heat but not sure about the taste, so I popped in another with it. . . .
Licked my lips as well, still not feeling any heat.

Definitely sweet bell pepper, the yellow one, even though this berry is red.

Sweet and lovely without the bitterness, I loved it !
The heat started building a bit after the taste faded out, and kept on building.
Not in the nose at all, just tongue and throat
Good grief, I really started sweating, having a real heavy reaction.
My lips started burning hard, and so did my mouth.

My ears even felt like I was going deaf or coming down from high altitude.

They started ringing even.
After 10 minutes the heat was calming down, also on the lips, still sweating though.
I hate this one, for having this fierce afterbite, and yes I am bitten by this one.
This one is weird !
20 minutes now, and the heat is almost gone and I have come to hate this one.

I have had this before with certain chillies, but for the life off me I would not know which one.

Chris Fowler heard of my quest to find the mother of tastes. So he was so kind as to send me a first timer.

He sent me a really fresh wild chilli, a Capsicum Eximium. An end of season fresh, Eximinum, perfectly round about 4 mm, dark red.

I opened it with a knife, and there was only one seed in it.
But this berry was very fleshy, thick skinned, and really looked like a berry.
Not a lot of air or open space, just like a blueberry or fox berry.

So, let’s go, my first fresh wild chilli ever !
I hoped to get some taste with this ini mini berry.
First taste was sweet, and then whammaaa the heat kicked in.
Most of the heat faded really really fast, weird.
As soon as the heat started to vanish ( in seconds really ) my mouth was able to taste.
A crazy sensation of a total overload in tastes, so hard to describe really.
20 or 50 times as much taste as the dried one for sure!

So I was sitting there with this mouth full, or more, with taste from this tiny berry in utter amazement really.
Just mumbling and being amazed, I sat there.
So my wife asks: Are you all-right luv, or are you burning away?
I just nodded.

After 5 minutes the taste slowly died, or I got used to it.

Sweet, fruity like apple maybe, berries, liquorice, almost overblown by the other tastes.

Definitely salt or umami as an after taste, broth like.

The only way I can explain how much taste, and how blown away I was, is this.
If one imagines an astronaut’s pill with everything in it, it is this berry.
In one pill the taste of:
5 apples
a handful of berries,
a small piece of Liquorice,
a pinch of salt
and some meat essence.

Crazy, so much taste!
I will never eat one again for fun, but could imagine me putting just one in a glass of tomato juice ( horrid stuff )
That mini berry, just one, would make tomato juice more than drinkable.

Now, seeds for wild chillies are not widely available.

Then again, I told you about the hippy like share culture amongst chilli lovers.
If you join a forum or a facebook group for chillies, share and re-share.

Do ask; maybe someone loves the wild chilli as much as I do, and shares.

Yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer

Courtesy to Chris Fowler  for the images!