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Thank you esox07!

You are in 4b and your frost date is as late (or as early as) late May? And things can grow outside till October. Thats pretty good. By the newer maps I am looking at I am zone 6b pushing into 7. I was thinking my window was smaller than yours, but probably not then.

Thanks a lot for the advice on starting times and planting times. That's very helpful. This year I will just do what I can.

I found superhotchiles.com is selling a few peri peri plants. I am going to try. I probably will not get ripe peppers but I will have some experience. And I might try bringing in the plants indoors.

Yes, there is so much fun in experimenting. I just wanted to know what the flavor of these peppers were specifically. There is such a brouhaha on some websites. But maybe they are not all that popular or special after all.

Thank you,

K.

Welcome to the forums!

I believe they are in the Frutescens family by the way, which means you might be able to substitute with certain Tabasco peppers. Not all of them will taste exactly the same of course, some are richer tasting, some hotter etc.

Processing Tabasco's can take a little more time as people like to "ferment" this species of pepper to bring out a richer taste (it really is yummy!). You can always buy a bottle of homemade / private label stuff online to see if you like the fermented flavor beforehand. The classic McIlhenny tabasco sauce is fermented, but many feel it has too much vinegar and that it masks the underlying taste a bit.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Every time I think of one pepper you tell me of a new one. And my yearning to try yet something more gets bigger. :) I did look up Tabasco peppers and the eponymous sauce and fermenting peppers. You know some time in my life I did try Tabasco sauce as a cooking ing and as a condiment. It did not do much for me then. I can't even remember what I tasted. It lacked a breadth or depth of flavor. Now much later I will give it a another try. I have a much more honed palate and have acquired many new tastes and might appreciate the subtleties.

Vinegar aside, I really want to try what fermentation does to hot peppers. That is something I am looking forward to. I might try with some store or farmers market peppers right away. Let me put some knowledge together.

I don't think knowingly I have ever tasted fresh Tabasco peppers. Another pepper I want to grow, specially now that I will be growing peri peri pepppers.

Thank you Steve.

K.

Piri-piri means "pepper-pepper" in Portuguese, IIRC. I make a lot of Piri-piri sauce using dried and fresh Thai Hots, Pequins, Arbols, or any kind of red pepper except the super hots. The pepper just provides the heat to a mixture heavy in lemon or lime juice, garlic, cilantro, salt, and paprika for a more intense red color. Sub flat leaf parsley for cilantro if you don't like it.

30 Thai hot
or other small red peppers

½ cup fresh
lemon juice, lime juice, or Goya Bitter Orange juice

½ cup olive
oil

6 chopped
garlic cloves

1 tablespoon
paprika

1 teaspoon
table salt

Chopped
cilantro

Put
everything in the blender and process ‘till smooth. Add chopped cilantro and
pulse ‘till incorporated. Great on fish, lamb, or chicken.

Thank you tomt226. That's sounds like a good recipe. I will try it. Always into trying new condiments. I pulled a recipe for peri peri sauce off the internet and though the ingredients are same/similar the procedure is different and I can tell its a very different product. I was looking for one authentic peri peri sauce but like harrisa or curry I guess there is no one sauce even among natives. They are similar in spirit but can vary quite a bit. That's probably a good thing.

Are you using dry or fresh peppers?

Thank you for sharing.

K.

I use both fresh or dried, depending on the time of year. The fresh seems to have better flavor, however. You can make a green piri-piri using ten Serrano peppers and no paprika. Had some friends that taught in Angola and Mozambique who said that every village had it's own recipe. That stuff is so good you could put it on a cedar shake and it'd be edible...

I was just thinking of making a green version, there are no red fresh chilies around. I can almost smell it and taste it.......

Can you go to a Mexican market in NYC and get some dried Arbols? Those work really well.

I actually have quite a few dry Arbols....thanks for the tip!

Ok tom226

I tried both the red and green version. In my hands they came out very distinct the commonality being the citrus and heat.

Its hard to say which I liked better. The green one I made with the small Indian green bird chilies, lime and cilantro (no paprika). It tasted so fresh, almost Thai. It is lovely and I loved it. The red one which I made with dry arbols, lemon and parsley has deep, dark flavor which is so different and I love it too. There are so many ways make your recipe, depending on the chili, the herb and the citrus...I will have a lot of fun with it.

Thank you for sharing!

K.

Glad you liked it. BTW, I found piri-piri seeds at "Refining Fire Peppers" at Amazon. About 3 or 4 pages in.

Epazote makes a good mix too. Really different. Try putting 3 or 4 tablespoons of either mix in a pound of 80/20 ground chuck or lamb and mixing it in well. Slap 'yo mamma good burgers...

Hi Steve,

I was out of town for a few days and even though I am not a breakfast person I made it a point to order eggs and potatoes to taste the different fermented hot sauces that were offered on the tables. Something must have happened to me because I was surprised by how much I loved the taste and flavor of these. And then I found myself ordering breakfast for late lunches so that I could have the hot sauces. Off the top of my head I remember trying red Tabasco, Franks and Crystal. Tabasco was the hottest and thinnest and most vinegary. I liked them all.

Inspired by what you said I am practicing a round of making fermented hot sauce from jalapenos. They are still fermenting and taste nothing like what I just tasted out of a bottle but whatever they are now they do taste good to me and very different from fresh jalapenos! It tastes just like kim chee at this point.

Than you so much!

K.

Very nice K, i'll bet that Jalapeno's are perfect for fermenting, i know i love them roasted or fried, especially the ripe ones. If it's been 4 to 5 days then i'll bet the batch is finished and ready for storage.

At the risk of feeding or creating a new addiction, there's a few more things you can try during harvest time; pickles and powder. For pepper pickles i add Ball Pickle Crisp, for powder i dehydrate and combine different pepper types to give it a richer + more complex taste. Come to think of it, combining different pepper types would probably create a richer hot sauce too. If you don't have enough peppers in your own garden to process, then head over to a farmer's market, in July/August/September, to inexpensively boost your supply (get there early for a better selection!).

Steve

Thank you Steve! I am going further with the fermentation of these jalapenos. Everyday the flavor changes and the texture of the peppers changes. This is a good experiment. Lot of cool learning from 1-1/2 lbs of jalapenos. The recipe I am following says 4-7 days however I see people go on for several weeks or more. Lets see what happens to the 'mash'...

Thanks for the info on Ball Pickle Crisp. I definitely want dry some of the peppers I get.

So much to look forward to.

K.

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