Unripe

[igenlode]

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I cut down my catch-up chillies this morning, as at least one of the plants had no fruit left on it whatsoever (they have all dropped off of their own accord over the last week or so) and the others were all looking fairly unhealthy. I was hoping I might get at least a few ripe ones, but, as you can see, while a couple of them had black streaks weeks ago, it failed to develop into red. (Oddly enough a couple of the others seem to be turning yellow instead!) You can also see the sheer size of the large fruits compared to the little freshly-set ones...

I used one of the windfalls in a curry the other night, and ended up putting the whole large thing in seeds and all, where I would normally scrape out the seeds and only use about a quarter of it, because it simply wasn't very hot; the seeds were a lot milkier than I'm used to, as well, so I'm afraid these chillies simply haven't managed to ripen properly. Really not all that surprising for plants that only germinated in June, but I'm not sure how much point there will be in drying and wasting space on storing this year's crop. I suppose I shall have to, though, because they don't keep all that well in the fridge, and I can't possibly use them up fast enough-- the windfalls are going soggy already after a week or so.

I still have dried chillies left from last year, although I think I've used about three-quarters of them; I tend to be extremely cautious with chilli because I don't like food to be actually 'hot', so sometimes I underestimate and it isn't detectable in the completed recipe at all :-p

I was intending to rely on the Demon Red chillies for culinary purposes this year -- most of those have now ripened, and those plants too are starting to look a bit sad, so they should probably be harvested too. (Also, that would mean I could do all the drying-out in a single operation.) I haven't as yet tested any of those for heat, however, although I'm assuming with a name like that they *will* actually be hot for their size....