Mark Diacono
LATIN NAME
Capsicum annuum, Capsicum frutescens
SEASONALITY
Fresh chillies harvested June–December
MORE RECIPES
Muhammara; Wilted mizuna with chilli, garlic and sunflower seeds; Sweetcorn with spring onion, chilli and coriander; Braised white beans with greens; Ewe’s cheese with chickpeas, roasted chillies and olives; Grilled squid with chilli, parsley and garlic; Roast gurnard with pepper, lemon, thyme and chilli; Zander with coriander and chilli dressing; Roast jerk chicken; Slow-roasted goose with star anise, orange and chilli; Fragrant beef curry; Hot haw jelly; Green tomato, cumin and green chilli chutney
SOURCING
coolchile.co.uk; seaspringseeds.co.uk; southdevonchillifarm.co.uk
My father, born in Sri Lanka, liked chilli in everything. He stopped short of sprinkling dried chillies on his coffee, but only just. Not surprisingly, a dislike of chillies formed part of my teenage rebellion; I’m happy to confirm I have left that far behind. Like many other British cooks and gardeners, I’ve grown to love chillies. This is largely thanks to a band of specialist growers who now cater to the needs of the spiceophile online or via farmers’ markets, selling fresh and dried chillies as well as chilli plants and seeds to grow yourself. These suppliers have opened our eyes to the huge variety of flavours, aromas, textures and degrees of heat that exist beyond the supermarket.
Most of the chillies you find in the shops are the shiny, bullet-shaped ‘Serenade’ variety, selected partly for their reasonable flavour and moderate heat – measuring 5,000–12,000 on the Scoville Heat Unit scale (SHUs) – but largely for their shelf-life. They are perfectly fine, but when there are chillies out there that measure a mere 200 SHUs or well over a million you can see that the supermarket selection is rather thin. Thankfully, some now stock fiery ‘Bird’s Eye’ chillies or hot ‘Scotch Bonnets’ but to enjoy the rest, you’ll need to find specialist suppliers or grow them yourself. Before you shop, get to know a little about what you’re looking for.
Vegetable chillies
These are relatively large, thick-skinned and fleshy, with only a mild heat.
Padrón A superb tapas chilli, this variety accelerates from mild to distinctly lively (around 12,000 SHUs) when mature. My favourite way of enjoying padróns is to fry them in a very hot wok with a little oil, flipping them regularly, until well blistered, then serve them heavily dusted with salt and pepper, accompanied by a cold beer. Be prepared for the occasional more mature, and much hotter, one.
Poblano Large, heart-shaped and mild (1,000–1,500 SHUs), this excellent chilli colours from green to deep chocolate as it ripens. It’s fabulous in stews, just halved and deseeded, or roasted and/or stuffed. When dried, it’s known as ancho chilli.
Hungarian Hot Wax A long, thin chilli with mild to moderate heat (around 6,000 SHUs) and a good flavour and aroma. Use it in anything from pasta dishes to salsas.
Spice chillies
These are small, thin-skinned and usually pretty hot. Grow a good early-ripening variety such as ‘Super Chile’, and not only will you get fantastic chillies at around five times the heat of supermarket chillies, but you can expect 200–300 per plant. Their thin skin and small size makes spice chillies very easy to dry.
Bird's Eye These small chillies are much used in Southeast Asian cuisine. They can be astronomically hot (up to 200,000 SHUs), although those you find in British shops are often relatively tame.
Jalapeño These chillies are useful all-rounders. Moderately hot, they become spicier as they mature from green to red (though usually sold green). Very good deseeded and sliced raw into salsas, or stuffed and fried.
Super Chile Hugely productive and easy to grow, this is pretty assertive at 36,000 SHUs. It takes superbly to drying.
Stumpy A variety for those with limited space, this grows like a diminutive bunch of flowers and is perfectly happy on a sunny windowsill. It is highly productive and its hot fruit (27,000 SHUs) are great all-rounders. The stunning ‘Fairy Lights’ (pictured next), which is even hotter, is another great choice for container growing.
These belong to the spice chilli group but their distinctive fruitiness sets them apart. Most are very hot, but I would recommend trying something milder too, such as ‘Apricot’ or ‘Bellaforma’. Try them raw, or in a warm salad of contrasting flavours, such as feta, mangetout and strawberries. These mild varieties also tune you in to the similar fine, fruity, aromatic characteristics in stronger habaneros such as hot Scotch Bonnet, a Jamaican chilli that rates as high as 55,000 SHUs.
Apricot One of my very favourite chillies, this is mild enough to eat like an apple, releasing bursts of apricot and even kiwi flavours and aromas. At their best when pale apricot in colour, apricot chillies are great in salads, stuffed, or raw.
Scotch Bonnet Named for its shape and famed for its heat, in reality, this chilli is milder than many other habaneros. It’s good for almost any chilli application but especially in sauces and salsas. If you fancy growing one, search out ‘Trinity’ (40,000 SHUs), the best I’ve tried.
Turtle Claw This is a thin, knobbly chilli that ripens not to red but to lemon yellow, offering plenty of the classic habanero fruitiness with a distinctive lemon zestiness. It is very hot (96,000 SHUs) and very good.
Super-hots
These are the hottest of the habaneros, often hitting 500,000 SHUs. The ‘Dorset Naga’, one of the hottest chillies in the world, can be over 1 million SHUs. I am not remotely interested in eating ultra-hot varieties – what flavour there might be is drowned in pain and discomfort. But some of the less incendiary super-hots can be superb.
Piri-piri This Portuguese hot chilli, ranging from 100,000–250,000 SHUs, is used to make the eponymous sauce for piri-piri chicken.
Usually chillies get hotter as they ripen, but also sweeter. So a red fruit will probably be a little spicier but also less sharp than a green one of the same variety. But heat can vary a lot, even with similar chillies from the same plant. To test a chilli’s heat relatively safely, cut off the stem end and run a moistened fingertip across the cut flesh and then on to your tongue: if it’s not excruciatingly hot, test again by dabbing the tip of your tongue on the chilli. If the heat needs diluting, remove the seeds and white membrane, both of which hold disproportionate levels of capsaicin, the chemical that delivers that heat. As the heat doesn’t dissipate with cooking, it’s wise to use chillies judiciously.
If you are ever in need of something to soothe a chillied mouth, resist the temptation to reach for water: something lactic, fatty or starchy such as yoghurt, cheese or bread, will help alleviate chilli burn on the tongue.
Dried chillies
Their water driven off by sun, heat or smoke, dried chillies have their own intense, sweet appeal. They can be used as they are, dropped whole into stews or curries, or coarsely chopped, processed or crumbled first. However, in Mexican cooking, where they are used often, they are typically deseeded and lightly toasted in a pan for a couple of minutes, then soaked in hot water for 20–30 minutes. The reconstituted chillies can then be turned into a paste and added to stews, soups, sauces and salsas.
Chipotle Usually available as whole dried chillies, chipotles are smoke-dried jalapeños, which, while varying in size and heat, tend to pack a fair punch. They have an incredible smoky flavour and are perfect for slow cooking – in a bolognese or chilli con carne, for example – though I tend to take the chilli out before eating as the combination of heat and smoke is lovely just left as a ghost.
Ancho This is a dried poblano chilli. Mild in flavour, it is a favourite in Mexican cooking where fruitiness and gentle heat are what is desired.
Guajillo A moderate red chilli, this is perfect for most Mexican recipes, from mole to enchiladas, where a little more heat than ancho is required.
Dried chilli flakes Derived from whole dried chillies, these are useful for adding a quick-and-easy blast of heat to a dish, but bear in mind that they lose their essential oils and some of their subtlety much more quickly than whole dried chillies. Buy in small quantities and don’t let them hang around in your storecupboard for too long.
Growing your own chillies
Growing chillies is easy as long as you sow them early, and shower them with heat, light and feed. Sow in modules in a propagator, airing cupboard (just until germinated) or on a warm windowsill in February ideally, March at the very latest. Hold your nerve: germination can take a month. Keep the compost lightly damp the whole time. Once germinated, chillies grow best at around 20°C with a minimal drop in temperature overnight. Pot into 10cm pots when the roots show at the bottom of the modules, then feed fortnightly with a good tomato or seaweed feed. When the roots appear at the base of the pot, transplant to the ground or pot in which they will grow to maturity. The earliest ripening varieties may produce fruit when grown outside in a very good summer, but a greenhouse, polytunnel or sunny windowsill is a safer option. Consider starting with seedlings for a slightly easier life.
If you have a good crop, chillies take surprisingly well to freezing, retaining their flavour, aroma and structure well. Freeze in a single layer on a tray, then bag them up. When defrosted, use them as fresh.
Drying your own chillies
If you have a bulk of fresh chillies, it is worth drying them. Chillies will dry spread out on a warm windowsill, but this can take a couple of weeks. For best results, halve the chillies and dry them in a very low oven (below 100°C); this can take anything from 30 minutes to 5 hours – the slower the better.
Other sources of chilli heat
Chilli powders are useful for delivering easily measurable and controllable heat. I particularly like cayenne pepper, which is fairly hot (30,000–50,000 SHUs), though some generic chilli powders can be worthwhile. Whatever the form of chilli powder, don’t be tempted to toast it in a pan as you might other spices, as the dust can become airborne and irritate the throat and eyes.
Chilli sauces abound, with Tabasco perhaps the best known. Made solely using hot tabasco chillies, vinegar and salt, it makes a fine shortcut to heat – sprinkle a little into sauces, stews and even on to pizzas for an instant chilli hit.
Harissa is a North African sauce made from a blend of chillies, sweet peppers, garlic and spices, with some varieties including other flavours such as tomatoes or rose petals. Its sweet, aromatic chilliness is great as a marinade for fish or meat (lamb especially), as a dip, added to stews or with poached or scrambled eggs.
A mole (‘mole-ay’) is a traditional Mexican chilli sauce for meat, often thickened with nuts and enriched with dark chocolate, to warm, spicy effect. This recipe is delicious with chicken but, if you are lucky enough to be in possession of a couple of young, tender rabbits, they will work well too (the cooking isn’t long enough to tenderise older, tougher meat). Use dried chillies of your choice – guajillos are good for a nice medium heat, while chipotles give the sauce a lovely smoky depth as well as real kick. Serves 4–6
About 10g medium-hot dried chillies, such as 2 guajillos or chipotles
50g hazelnuts
50g almonds or cashew nuts
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 large onion, cut into 8–12 wedges
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 star anise
6 cloves
¼ cinnamon stick
4 large, ripe tomatoes, halved
3 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
750ml chicken or veg stock
2 tbsp raisins or sultanas
1 free-range chicken (1.5–2kg), jointed, or 4–6 chicken joints, or 2 medium young rabbits, jointed
25g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), grated or finely chopped
Cayenne pepper (optional)
Lime juice, to taste
Sea salt
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4.
De-stem and roughly chop the dried chillies. Place them in a large roasting tray with the nuts, seeds, onion, garlic cloves and spices. Add the tomato halves, cut side up, and trickle with 2 tbsp oil. Roast in the oven for 25–30 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Add the stock and raisins to the roasting tray, give the mixture a good stir and return to the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool slightly.
Tip the contents of the roasting tray into a jug blender and blitz to a purée. A good blender should reduce the sauce to a pretty smooth consistency but if there are large pieces of dried spices or tomato skin remaining in the mix, pass it through a sieve.
Wipe out the roasting tray with kitchen paper, then add the chicken or rabbit pieces. Season them all over with salt and pepper and trickle with a little more oil. Roast in the oven for 25–30 minutes or until sizzling and golden – turn up the heat a little if the meat is slow to colour.
Pour the mole sauce around the meat, lower the oven setting to 160°C/Fan 140°C/Gas 3 and cook for about 45 minutes, turning the pieces once, or until the meat is tender and the sauce nicely thickened. Remove the meat to a warmed serving dish.
Stir the chocolate into the sauce and season to taste with salt. If it’s a little thick, you can ‘let it down’ with a ladleful more hot stock or water. If you’re hankering for more heat, give it a pinch of cayenne.
Spoon the sauce over the meat and give it a spritz of lime juice. Serve with freshly cooked rice, plain yoghurt (perhaps with some chopped coriander stirred in) and tortilla chips.
