There are many ways of preserving Chillies. One of them is by drying your harvest of Chillies or the ones you bought in a Market or a Shop. The advantage of this method is three folds for the use of your Chillies. My partner and I grow a lot of Chillies every year for our personal comsumption and it is nice to know ways of preserving the labour that went into our Garden throughout the year.

One year of Chilli Harvest and Tomatoes one. 

We love to grow different Varieties which give us different levels of heat so we can manage better the intensity of warmth we want a dish to impart. For that, I can advise that using a Scolville Scale is extremelly useful. We tend to grow mainly Mild to Medium Heat Chillies but we also grow the Medium to Very Hot Spicy ones.

Hot Cayenne Peppers harvest 2017.  We pick our Chillies before the first frost of the year around mid October to the end of October.

Now a Cayenne Pepper is ten times Hotter than a Jalapeno Chilli. But for any Chilli you do handle I will advise for you to use latex or PPE gloves. This is a Tip from someone (Me) who dried some Romesco Peppers which are sweet but one Cayenne Pepper was in their midst by mistake and I happened to rub my eyes. I could have learnt to danse the Samba that day.

Dried Hot Cayenne Chilli Peppers.

To get back to the three folds usage for dried Chillies, one is to use them all inside a liquid in order to impart warmth and flavour to it: For example a Spicy Asian style Broth during Chinese New Year Day as a Starter, or a Pumpkin Soup to warm you up while watching chilly movies during Halloween when you go back to an entire 'lets watch that serie again' during that night, I can suggest Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, True Blood and many more or good old or more recentish Movies, like Ghost, Casper, the Adams Family, Dracula, Poltergeist, Frankestein, Cape Fear, The Others... to name just a few.

The Adams Family TV Serie Theme

Asian Style Chicken and Mushroom Broth which was infused with dried Chilli. It gave an indugent nice warmth to the Broth: A tiggling which was most welcomed upon the tongue.

To keep upon the theme of Infusion, a whole dry Chilli or even a couple or three (it depends on how hot you like it), there are plenty of Stews for you to try which uses Dried Chillies. They are literally making a Stew to pack a punch of vibrancy on a cold Winter day. Dried Chillies goes well with Beef, Pork, Chicken Stews but it also give a hot lift to a Butter or Cannelloni Beans, Tomatoes and Sweet Pepper Stew. 

Some like it Hot compilation from Albie. Marilyn Monroe Song.

Spanish Pork Loin, Red Peppers, Plum Tomatoes and Chilli Stew with Button Mushrooms. 

The result of the Spanish Stew on a plate.  By using Dried Chillies it is not overly spicy.

There we must not forget the more delicate Fish and ShellFish Stew which can be enhanced by the inclusion of an entire dry Chilli whole or a chopped one... Imagine rendering together chopped Shallots and sliced Garlic in little Olive Oil, then to add one or two entire Monkfish Tails, cut into chunky pieces. Next comes the Dry Sherry input with your dry Cherry Chilli Bombs filled up with partly soft but cured Anchovies... It is up to you to decide how spicy you would love the dish to be but as the Cherry Bomb Chillies were deseeded, dried and stuffed I do think you can be a little bold on that one.

Cherry Bomb Chillies are rather mild and should not kill a dish by the warmth they do provide.

Add chopped Celery. Next comes 500 ml of Fish Stock, Home Made or not, to build up your Fish Stew. Let it simmer for five to ten minutes before adding one or two Lobster Tails along with Cherry Tomatoes, 500 g of them to 750 g, fresh cut in half or tinned with Tomato Juice. Season to taste, I would say keep it simple: Sea Salt (but not too much) and cracked Black Peppercorns, a Bay Leaf or two. After a couple to three minutes you can add to the Fish Stew some ShellFish like cleaned Mussels and Clams. Cover but Taste and Check. You want your Mussels and Clams to open and sing 'Hello, is it me you're looking for?'.

Lionel Richie: 'Hello, is it me you are looking for?'

Finish the bowl of Fish Stew with chopped Parsley and serve with a nice Bread.

Zimbabwe Black Dried Chillies

About Zimbabwe Black Dried Chillies

Dried Cheyenne Chillies

About Dried Cheyenne Chillies

Dried Hot Cayenne Chilli Peppers

About Dried Hot Cayenne Chilli Peppers