The next Korean heirloom chilli, Soobi Cho

This is the second chili I got from the Yeongyang County (Yeongyang-gun); an inland county in the north-eastern area of North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.

Again I got very short and fast info:
The soobicho pepper is cultivated since the 1960s, with a hot and sweet taste. These chillies are susceptible to pests, so must be grown with great care. They have a low yield, and are now only grown in low numbers and small areas.

Ok, now that is a load of info isn’t it? I got a bit scared from the bit “susceptible for pests” so I put 4 plants totally isolated in the front yard, and 1 together with other not too special chillies in a different corner also away from my main crop.
So I waited and waited for pests to arrive, but none did. Now as I grow all my chillies in pots, with a mixture of 90% potting soil and 10% worm compost they hardly ever get pests. But this was funny, in the frontyard I even got aphids in tulips and onion sorts, but none whatsoever in the Soobi Cho. So no pests to be seen.

What also stunned me, these chillies, both the Soobi Cho and the Chilsoung Cho would have a low yield, and they do not. The plants bring loads of fruits, and some even tilt under the weight.

It takes a good while for them to ripen, but so do all the other varieties I have this year, so I would say they are normal. The first ones I tasted were odd, really a strange taste. They are sweet and fairly hot, about the heat of a cayenne or slightly more. The darn thing is from the first moment they remind me of tomato. Earlier in the year they really had a tomato taste, and later in the season they lose this more and more, but still keep reminding me of tomato. Now I work with a couple of great taste testers that have tested this one too, and they say the same.
Debating it again with them, we come to the conclusion that the chilli has this as it has some sour along with the sweets. Mainly it has the taste of sweet bell pepper with strong hints to tomato, is fairly hot. The flesh is slightly thicker than a Cayenne and the skin is somewhat tough. The acidity is faint but noticeable to all tasters. I think this is a stunning chilli to combine with the Chilsoung Cho for Kimchi pepper flakes making them a good step hotter. I think I will put them in my regular use flakes as well for their sweet and sour.. Fresh you can cook with them just fine, losing the acidity in seconds however. In a salad these are great used fresh !

Again proud of having a Korean Heirloom,

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot

From a guy at the camping we are staying at I got this Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot, as I told him I review, make and love hot sauces. He was a bit scared trying to taste it, as he thought it might be a bit too much for him. Mind, this guy was coming from Surinam, so he should be used to some hot food. So at a BBQ we had with a few neighbours at the camping I opened his bottle and took a teaspoon to try it. This stuff is hot, really hot, but had a good taste and a good after taste. Having a nice sharp direct burn, this sauce really lets you know directly what you eat heatwise, not building and not in the throat that much. The taste is superb and vibrant, having chilli taste and nothing but chilli, or ingredients that complement the chillies used. I tried it on bbq-ed sausage and bacon, and that dampens the heat a lot, also when used to make Satay Sauce it loses a good bit of heat. That said it is a brilliant sauce, which can be used on practically anything. In combination with sweet soy sauce, it however is something I don’t like with this particular sauce.

My bottle is 450 Ml for a price of around 3.5 Euro, not shabby!

So after using it a week, it reminds me a lot of my own basic Sambal Oelek( Ulek in Indonesian ) be it that this stuff is a bit more salty. Compared to my own Sambal, this sauce is about 4 times as hot, with the heat not overruling the taste, perfect balance I’d say! So I decided to give the distributor Heuschen & Schrouff Oriental Foods Trading BV a call, to see what information they had about it. I got a certain Mr Luyten at the phone from sales, and he was kind enough to provide me with some information and some addresses from places where I could buy this. I also took a look at the name Sriracha or in Thai called sot Siracha and its history. Now the first thing I notice is that it also is called Nam Prik Siracha, and that is????? Well, Nam Prik is the name used in Thailand for pepper pastes or sauces that closely resemble the Indonesian Sambal Ulek ( Oelek in Dutch ) so there you go, that is why I thought it tasted like my own basic Sambal! I love this stuff to death, wouldn’t mind eating a whole bottle at all. That said, this is not a shabby little bottle you would empty in a week, my bottle is 450 Ml for a price of around 3.5 euro! Now that really is stunning value for your money, and your regular hothead would not finish this bottle in a week or even 2. Then again, you really can put this stuff on anything, even my cheese sandwich goes down way better with this sauce.

Looking in the history of the name, Sriracha comes from the town named Si Racha in the Chonburi Province in central where it was possibly first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants. It is a chilli paste with distilled vinegar, garlic, salt and sugar. According to Wikipedia ( do not believe all that is written there ) the sauce is called sot Siracha in Thai and only sometimes nam phrik Siracha. Traditional Thai Sriracha sauce tends to be tangier, sweeter, and runnier in texture than non-Thai versions. Non-Thai sauces are different in flavour, colour, and texture from Thai versions as they are often adapted and changed for the local cuisine. In Vietnam it is more often used as a condiment for fried noodles or as a topping on springrolls.

Now this one, has got no garlic and I am glad about that as garlic often ruins the taste. It is not a sweet and sour sauce, it is salty if anything. Great compliment to chillies I'd say! Heat I would say at least and 8, compared to my Sambal being a 5. It is a bit salty but if you use just a bit less salt in your food, it is downright perfect to put on anything. Boring cheese comes alive, any sausage or springroll will see this as a compliment, and it is the perfect spice up for a stir fry. Price is stunning, good value for money and as close as you can get to my own sambal, having nothing too much to overrule the taste of the chillies. It is not too runny, and the bottle is perfect for pouring and dosing it on food or snacks, it has no seeds and is lovely smooth.

One negative note, it has got additives that are rather normal like citric acid and such, but it also contains E621 (sodium glutamate or ve-tsin ) Although being used for ages in the Chinese and Indonesian kitchen, it might not be for all people and there have been negative reports about it. I never use it myself in the kitchen but I know a lot of people do, even the restaurants in the Netherlands use it a lot. Last year I noticed some restaurants starting to advertise they don’t use ve-tsin so maybe this factory will stop using it in some time. The ingredients are: Chilli, Sugar, Water, Garlic, Flavour Enhancer (E621), Acidity Regulators (E260 and E330), Stabiliser (E415), Preservative (E202)

Even though it has Xanthan gum in it and sodium glutamate, and I normally do worry about that, I can’t stop eating the Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot, hmm that is principles out the door when tasting something great??

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Korean chillies, forgotten fruits? Part 2

A good friend of mine from Korea Mr. Gunsoo Lim and I am sending seeds up and down the world.

He is keen for superhot chillies, and I am looking for the ones that have a story to them or that have history.

It is not only that we send chilli seeds over the world; we also try to learn about each other’s culture through our food and recipe’s.

So I have gotten seeds from him from herbs, medicinal and for the kitchen, or a combination of the two.

That is where we differ in culture too, for me Endive is a green, good cooked and raw.

For my Korean friend, his food is both food and good for something, be it health or garden anything.

He got me Garland Chrysanthemum or Golden Daisy, as a green to eat raw, be it good for anything, I hate it.

The flower is superb looking, good and healthy an all, not food in my mind.

However, I got Korean Perilla from him as well, good for the soul and for the stomach.

The seeds are used for oil, and that oil looks a bit like sesame oil, that is why this herb is called sesame leaf.

The leaf however does not taste like sesame at all.

Now sesame leaf is an herb one shouldn’t miss out off, it is superb to drop in your stir fry at the last moment, and has a fantastic smell and taste to it.

Hard to describe, I would almost say it is peppermint, without the pepper. Sort of like the menthol is skipped in the herb, and the tastes behind that in peppermint has gotten stronger by 5.

It has a bit of sweetness about it, that you taste when it has just touched the pan for a bit, raw it is more strong of taste.

My friend showed me, they eat sesame leaf raw, folded as a parcel.

In this parcel, there is a clove of garlic, a piece of chilli, and a spoonful of soy pasted.

Have to try that this year, a bomb of taste for sure!

Man this is getting long, and I even haven’t started about the Korean chillies.

After months of searching, my friend Mr. Gunsoo Lim had found 2 rare Korean chillies and send me a note that he had something special, not saying what.

Another month later, he told me he had asked two farmers to send seed from special chillies, which are not even for sale in the market or at seed stores.

To me it sounded a bit strange, but later he told me, there were just a few farmers left that grow them, as they aren’t commercial enough these chillies.

Ha, now we’re talking aren’t we?

So he had these farmers send seeds from east to west in Korean, from a very isolated area, and that took its sweet time.

Waiting is half the fun, so I read up on where these chillies come from.

The soobicho pepper (Soobi cho) and the chilsoungcho (Chilsoung Cho) both come from a county in the Gyeongsang province.

They come from the Yeongyang County (Yeongyang-gun); This an inland county in the north-eastern area of North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.

The soobicho pepper is cultivated since the 1960s, with a hot and sweet taste.

These chillies are susceptible to pests, so must be grown with great care.

They have a low yield, and are now only grown in low numbers and small areas.

The chilsoungcho chillies were popular in the 1980s, and lately are hard to find.

Its chillies have the form of a Crucian carp. The taste of this pepper is mild and sweet.

These are the 2 very rare chilli seeds that came to me now about 2 months ago, and almost proud to be here in Holland, they grow big and proud, and are the largest plants I have now.

Chillies from Yeongyang, where people sing about their chillies, not joking it is true !

An isolated area difficult to access, Yeongyang is sometimes called an "inland island". The county has the lowest population of all counties in North Gyeongsang Province, being mountainous with deep ravines, and only 10 percent of land is cultivable. The county is famous for its apples and chili peppers, and is home to the Yeongyang Chili Pepper Experimental Station. From 1984, the county has elected a "Miss Chili Pepper" to represent Yeongyang chili peppers.

The area is also known as a centre of literature, with the tradition of scholars reading and reciting poetry deep in the mountains. I love poetry!

Writing this down, I see myself discovering this regent, eating their apples, chillies and tasting their recipe’s.
After experiencing their great hospitality, and good food I will climb a mountain there.

I see myself reciting my poetry, in the woods on the mountains in Yeongyang!

To my wife;

Tell it to the mountains,

tell it the trees,

tell it to the birds in the trees,

and the playful young foxes on the ground,

but tell it no woman,

or,

tell it to no man,

how much I love you.

For men can not believe,

that a man loves a woman,

like the way,

I love you!

Yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer