Taste review: Parvifolium mini mini

Last year I was send some seeds from Lee, the founder of Wildchilli.eu.
One of them was the "Parvifolium mini mini" It even became one of the biggest plants I had this year.

Lee already warn me it would take a long time to ripen them, and he was right!
For more than months the fruits stayed green, and with winter and frost coming, I had to dig it out and take it inside.
Even inside, with warmer conditions, it didn't ripen. So today I decided to taste a green one.
The fruits of the Parvifolium mini mini are very small like the name already did suggest.

Now to the taste:
First (like you can expect from a green chilli) the typical green bell-pepper taste,
Followed by a nice fresh citrus, wow its just like a ripe lemon!
Then the heat kicks in, very shape sting in my tongue who also disappears rather quick, leaving me with a little taste like lemongrass.
A itchy feeling in my nose made me blow it..and then it started: This one burns in your nose!
The burning feeling you get under your nose when you have a cold and have to blow it a lot.....times ten!


Parvifolium mini mini, a little,citrus tasting, bugger, wonder how it will taste when ripe!

Aldo

Chilli taste revies, the Purira

This is one extremely lovely chilli to look at, amazing colours and growth and nice white flowers.

The question however is, what this chilli is, a frutescens or a annuum? I have seen a load of debate about it, and no real outcome. Ah who cares, it looks stunning. I almost thought it was a snack pepper.

I have had these from a facebook friend in the Netherlands, and I took a look at all the pictures and really, it is stunning. It seemed to ripen off a bit late though.

Cutting this one open gave a lovely sweet smell and you could smell the heat. Other than sweet and hot they don't have a smell. So, in you go, and out again ! Good grief, that is one freaking hot pepper.
I read it being between 50K scoville and 400K scoville units the upper end being a nasty surprise from one plant to an other. If one is that hot, all at the same plant are that hot. Other than that first micro second of sweet I got no taste out of it at all. I cut between the seed lists, and just hot ans sweet. It is a perfect looker, and brings heat, no taste at all. One plus is, no taste is not a bitter one too. Great looker, but no thanks ! Great that you send them though Catharina, glad the next one was a load better !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J Meijer

Fusion fish soup recipe with Sichuan flower pepper.

This is one fast recipe, with excellent and mind boggling tastes as simple as it is, and it will play your mouth like you would never believe. It has fragrances as if you were in central China, a taste as if you were on one of the Indonesian Islands, while a mountain breeze plays with your hair!
Hope you can keep up with me, as it is fast !

You need:
250 gram firm fish, perch, seabass, mackerel, or barracuda.
250 Ml of water
5-6 good quality Sichuan flower peppers
1 Facing Heaven Bullet chilli dried
1 Cabai Bendot if possible( Red Rocoto or Giant Red Rocoto )
5 cm of winter carrot
5 cm leek
1 little clove of garlic
1 little red onion
A bit of sea salt
One dinner spoon peanut oil or rapeseed oil
Chinese Jasmine tea
A couple of branches Samphire or seaweed if possible
A little dried rice noodles

If you can't get the seaweed and the Cabai Bendot, no worries it will still taste great.

Put water up in a normal pan with a lid, about a litre to get to the boil.

Slice your fish in thin slices. I use Vietnamese barracuda here that tempted me to use Dong Xuan Market, but pepper would not fit in it.
Slice thin slices from your garlic, less than a mm.
Peel the skin off from the Facing Heaven Bullet, and cut in to very fine pieces.
Crush and cut the flower pepper in fine pieces.

Put your wok or frying pan on medium fire with the oil, slices of garlic, the crushed flower pepper and fine cut Facing Heaven Bullet chilli.

Slice the leek and carrot “Julienne” making nice and fine strips. Cut thin half moon slices of red onion, and Cabai Bendot.

As soon as the garlic starts to sizzle the first bit, add 250 ml of water and some good sea salt. In the pan with only the water blanche the Samphire in it for just a minute or 2 and take it out.
Then put a handful of dried rice noodles, and a tea egg with Chinese Jasmine tea enough to make the water to a light tea. Put down the heat on the pan with the tea water and rice noodles.
The water in the wok will now almost be boiling too, add the fish, this will take very little time as the fish just has to get white. So as soon as it is to the boil again it is ready.
Rinse the plates with hot water, now start serving. Put a good soup spoon full of the fish with its broth in the plate. Centre the fish in the middle, with the broth around it. Take some rice noodles, just about more than a dinner spoon full out of the pan with Jasmine tea, and put on top of the fish. I do this with chop sticks, as the stuff is very slippery. Take the leek Julienne between two fingers in the middle, and place it on top of noodles. Stick 3 Julliene pieces of carrot between the fish and the noodles just pointing outwards. Around the fish in its broth, put 3-5 half moons of red onion, and 3-5 half moons of Cabai Bendot.

Enjoy !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Growing chillies: Germinating chilli seeds.

To have chilli seeds to germinate, is one difficult business. It is an art really. So hold on your socks, and get ready! There are many many ways to do that, and I will walk you through a couple. You can germinate them on wet tissue paper, in ziplock bags. I do that to check the germination rate, it works wonders. Then again, if they germinate and you want to transplant them to soil, you are bound to damage a few. After checking the germination rate, I throw them away.
You can also germinate them in moist cotton wool, and transplant them top soil if they germinate, again a good few will be damaged. You can also germinate them in wet sand, but that at times seems to suffocate the seeds. You can also germinate them in diatomite, if you want to grow them hydro, but I don’t. And last but not least, you can germinate them in gel from pampers, works great as they give off water at a slow rate and it is sterile.

You can also seed them in soil, rather funny that people do a lot of different miraculous ways of seeding, while most seeds are made to germinate in soil. I am not sarcastic, but I know there are a load of good ways to keep you and me paying a load more, for not a lot more. Last time I looked at seeding soil, which actually is normal potting soil, only run through a sieve. Well, I can so that myself, without paying 5 to 8 times as much.
So what do you need is moist loose potting soil(compost), 100% humidity for the time until you see the first leaves, and a snug temperature from 24-26 Celsius. To do this you can use fancy propagators with heating, common propagators put over the heating or radiators, you can even use takeaway boxes. And that is what I do.

What you need:
Good potting soil, not super expensive stuff.
Worm compost if possible
Takeaway boxes with lids Some water
Good seeds
A warm spot
If in doubt over the seeds, some tea and some chamomile tea

If you want your seeds to be fast, or if you are in doubt about the seeds you can several things. You can soak them in germinating solution that will cost you good money, and doesn’t really do a lot. You can also soak them in weak tea, or rather a weak tea from 50 % tea and 50% chamomile tea (also spelled chamomile) If you do half and half chamomile tea, you got the advantage that the chamomile is anti septic. It will keep the seeds from getting mould. It will break down the hull or seed skin a bit, making it easier for the full seeds to pull out.
So, put them in a mug or a ziplock bag for 8-12 hours with the mixed tea.

Now for the takeaway boxes, they need to be ultra clean, I fill them with washing up water, and put them in the microwave for 30 seconds without the lid. The Lid I clean apart, and put some holes in it with a perforator. Then again I put them with a little water in it, with the lid on for 30 seconds in the microwave. This will make them sterile. A run in the dishwasher will do the same.

So, put about 25-30 mm moist soil in the takeway box, without chunks or hard bits. Put in the seeds, marked if you do multiple varieties. Put them under the ground as much as they are in size, so that they are covered with about 2-3 mm of soil. This will make it easier for the first leaves to totally get out of the seeds skin.
If you have it, worm compost or compost from a compost heap that has worms is a great thing to add. I have my own wormbins, and add 10% cleaned worm compost with the potting soil. Sometimes I add just one little worm. The worm and the life in the worm compost will eat mould if you get it. Seeds that rot will be eaten too. And that is a good thing, to get rid off before it affects the other seedlings.

Normally I cover the seeds with 2 mm of soil, not this time for the picture.

Put them at a warm and snug place, over the radiator or the central heating, or on a modem or computer. I use my computer for it all the time as it has the right temperature. Some people advice temperatures of 28-32, but that has a downside, moulds or bacteria will grow at a much faster rate. So 20 C will do, 23-26 much better, higher will have things speed up with a load as well as the risks for mould or fungus.

If they are up a bit they need light ! So a dark spot is not too good, however you can put a simple led spot over it, or a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) The colour if possible should be 6400-6500 K.

Now leave them alone, or sit and watch. Keep them moist only, not wet, and keep the lids on to keep the humidity at 100%. It will take 5-10 days for them all to be above the ground, and a couple of days to get rid of the hull or seed skin. There are a few exceptions; wild varieties can take up to 2 months. When they all have shed their seed skin, it is time to take the lid off and get them used to lower humidity levels. Ok, in about 14 days I will take you to the next step!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review C. Pubescens "Rocoto Manzano Grande"

Some of you must have gotten tired after reading the title, that name is one mouthful!
The Capsicum pubescens is one of the oddest chilli families there is, I think. The name pubescens means hairy, not that the chillies are, the plant is hairy. These chillies also are called tree chillies, and are known to get over 15 years old, and as big as trees. These pubescens or Rocoto chilli plants are not grown a lot by commercial growers, and that always made me wonder.

Rocoto or pubescens chilli plants are a bit hard to grow, or at least to get them to fruit. As they really are no annual plants, the second year they will do much better. Now that is a bit hard as the can handle a very mild frost a bit, but with our normal winters they will die. So you have to overwinter them in the house. There is a trick to have them carry fruit, and that is to prune them. Cut the end of a branch when it has a good couple of flowers. What is also done, to get the fruits to colour faster, is binding the branches up, so the fruits will get more sun.

Now the plants are odd and beautiful, and some grow to be huge in one year, they start to flower early, but only later on they will get fruits. The flowers are stunning to say the least, purple and purple with white, almost bell like. I have enjoyed growing these plants, for their appearance only, what a stunning plant!
The fruits are odd too, they are huge compared to other chillies and have black seeds. This is stunning, think about a Sambal with black seeds! The burn off the fruit is different too, the heat spreads like thin oil on water, and will be all over your mouth in no time. The burn in these chillies are overall different, and people react on them in a different way. Some say they are much hotter, some say the burn is different, or both.

The structure of the fruit also is different, both in build as in mouth feel. Now as this actually is a taste report, I will get in to the the taste and mouth feel. The skin is less thick and easier to bite through, the flesh is less crunchy and much thicker than any chilli I know. Although the flesh is less crunchy, it isn't unpleasant, and has the mouth feel of a nectarine almost. It is very succulent and moist, and feels fatty when you chew it, even your mouth feels like eating something with fat.

Mind, this is a little one !

Now this one, the Rocoto Manzano Grande or Giant Red Rocoto is not very hot, I almost think it is rather to the mild side. However if you cook with it, it feels like it is getting hotter, weird. The taste is a bit like cucumber, and some paprika, not really sweet. If you want to turn in into a pepper paste, almost everything can be used, if you take the seeds out. The fruit doesn't really have ribs or seedlists, but has walls dividing it, with a sort of heart on top. Everything is soft in it, even the heart. Fresh eaten in a salad, I would suggest using it with some black pepper and some salt, nothing more. Traditionally they are eaten stuffed and boiled, or steamed with the stuffing in it. If you have a hotter version, the traditional way to get them milder is to take the inners out, and fill them with milk. Leave overnight and use the next day. Works like a charm !

To the experts, the red Rocoto's are the least tasty ones, with a few exceptions. So the other Rocoto's coming up are really a step up, or more ! Exciting !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review, Ciliegia Piccante or Baccio de Satana (Satan’s Kiss)

This Italian Heirloom variety was on my “need to have” list last year, one with a growing popularity in the Netherlands. So, got it and grew it. I do have to say, the promise of not too hot, and the words Satan’s kiss triggered to buy them too. Just would love to have a funny little cherry chilli with a bit of a kick.

Beautiful pant and jolly great show and all, but this is not a candy. The first time I bit one in half, I did everything but sing. Good grief, this one lovely looking chilli has a stingy heat and really is more than mild. So I tried this chilli over and over again to get what is so special about them. And I am afraid to say, if found nothing special in them taste wise. It is just your regular boring chilli, that looks superb.

We have tried them with peanut butter filled, with cream cheese, and with anchovies making them a load better. But they are small and full off seeds, so it does take a bit of trouble to be able to use them. I for one will not grow them again for tastes, but will grow them for keeping this heirloom alive. If you do have the patience for cleaning the seeds out, I bet they are wonderful in a pickle or brine. Do use a good herbs and a good bit of garlic and salt to get them some flavour.

It is a stunning looking chilli with a good bit of heat but not a special taste.

Sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Ethiopian Brown

I am ashamed to say I don’t know who offered me those seeds, but I do have to say thank you !
The name got a bit puzzled and I had to see what came out. There are 2 varieties that closely resemble each other, the Ethiopian Brown and the Berber Hot chilli. After the fruits started to form, it was obvious; it really is the Ethiopian Brown as the pods form hanging down. The Berber hot, is growing up, so got that covered and the name has proven to be right.

This plant forms irregular, a bit wrinkled pods that slowly sort off fold out to a point you might think they will get totally smooth, but they don’t. Funny looking chillies that stay green a long time, then start to slowly show some brownish red or reddish brown. If the sun is covered with clouds, they really are brown, but if the sun gets to them the red shines through the brown. Stunning, almost looking like a chestnut that just dropped with the husk split showing the lovely colours inside. I tried to catch this colour in a photograph, and this took me a long time, but they are beautiful.

It seems to be a rather rare chilli and it is huge. Most measure 12/15 cm and 3/4 cm wide. Unfortunately I can not find too much about them, other than being used in the Berber kitchen. Stews and such, slow roasts pots and being roasted they seem to have multiple uses.

When digging in, I noticed this is a complex chilli to taste and describe. I never go for looks, and try not to be fooled by appearances; I am not the best looker either even though I got good taste. This chilli without any doubt has dark tastes, combined with good sweets, and even a hint of chocolate. Now this said, I started to doubt myself; did I get fooled by the looks? You know, the association one has with looks, so tasted it again. I was pretty sure, but as a check gave my wife a bite, without telling what it was. She doesn’t know too much about chillies but her first comment was; is this chocolate chilli?
So, she had the same idea, without knowing what it was. The basic tastes this chilli has are: sweets, fruits, herbs, ground tones and a slight but very pleasant bitter. This is why I had the idea of chocolate, milk chocolate, the bitter you find in chocolate and sweet coffee.

The one down-point from this beautiful chilli is its skin; it is rather tough or hard. Looking at the taste and its odd but beautiful appearance, it is a need to have chilli I would not mind roasting and peeling. In a mortar it would make a great pepper paste, adding a bit of sea salt and a touch of garlic.
This chilli is great dried as well, with its taste not changing that much, so would make great flakes or powder.
Enjoy!

Sincerely yours,

Bart J. Meijer