Home Made Chilli Sauce

Who would have thought there would be seed Saving in April. Here, there is some seed saving every month when you include the squash which are seeded as we eat them. This morning's seed saving exercise was the last of the Bolivian Hairy chillies. This is a different species of chilli than the normal ones, Capiscum pubesens, which means hairy chill. The chillies themselves are are hairless but the leaves and stems are covered by a layer of fine hairs which may account for their hardiness. These chillies have been ripening away on leafy plants all winter. The recent frosts knocked them back a bit but they are trying to leaf out again, which hopefully means I won't need to sow them again.

Actually I have tons of seed as they are the most prolific chillies I have ever grown. Perhaps there will be a world shortage of chilli seeds, if so and you have just found this blog, here is where you can buy them. http://www.brownenvelopeseeds.com/product-p/bolivian-hairy-chilli.htm

Now that the seeds are all poked out I am going to make a fermented chilli sauce with them. I will liquidise the flesh with a little water, add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sugar, put them in a jar to ferment. If I had a bit of saurkraut juice I would add that instead of water.

I usually use a corked mustard jar and a fermentation lock for the fermentation, which takes about 3 weeks. Then I strain off the liquid in a sieve, and store it in an old tamari bottle. As you can see from the dwindling supply in the bottle, we will be suffering chilli withdrawals before it is ready.

When I liquidised the chillies I realised they would never fit in the mustard jar, so I have put them in a Kilner type jar.

I hope it doesn't explode, I will try and remember to release the pressure every couple of days.

My neighbour Jan says chilli is the only addictive substance that doesn't do you any harm. Does anybody know if that is true?