The burning, it burns.

August 25, 2009 7:00 PM

My Thai Dragon Chili pepper plant is huge with I'm estimating at least a hundred peppers. Please recommend culinary uses for these peppers.

This is my first year growing hot peppers and the bounty is starting to look a bit overwhelming compared to what I'm used to with bell peppers. There have got to be well over a hundred Thai Dragon peppers (75K-100K scoville units) on my plant. I'll be getting a similar harvest off my Kung Pao (at a slightly more reasonable 6-12K scoville units). Once I've used a few for chili I'm going to have a good size bucket left over.

I like things a little warm (say a three on Earl's chili rating for their old Kung Pao Chicken dish for those who that means anything).

Any suggestions for uses in cooking or even better specific recipes would be great. Especially if they include tomatoes, runner beans or rutabagas.

posted by Mitheral to food & drink (15 comments total)

First, you can start by sending some of those extra peppers to me.

My suggestions for using up the peppers:
Spicy Gumbo
Spicy Jambalaya
Make your own barbeque sauce
Make your own hot sauce.
Pickle them.
Bread and deep fry them.
posted by Jon-o at 7:06 PM on August 25

make chili powder for all your friends for the holidays

http://www.recipezaar.com/Homemade-Chili-Powder-97816

my dad smokes the chilis instead of baking them.
posted by nadawi at 7:06 PM on August 25

pick a peck of peppers; pickle 'em.
post your pickled peppers to a a picky poster (me)

gree hee hee
posted by mr. remy at 7:12 PM on August 25

Chili infused vodka?
posted by knapah at 7:16 PM on August 25

Chili pepper jelly!
posted by mrmojoflying at 7:21 PM on August 25

Sun-dry a bunch, then chop them finely and leave them in a bowl, to sprinkle over Pad Thai etc... (or, indeed, anything...)
posted by pompomtom at 7:54 PM on August 25

Do you like spicy vinegar? Soak several dozen peppers for a couple of weeks in a bottle of white vinegar and use the resulting infusion on your french fries, vegetables, Mexican food, or whatever else. (Cutting small slits in the peppers will speed up the process and intensify the heat.)
posted by applemeat at 8:14 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]

I make my own chili garlic paste. Cut the stems off the peppers and chop them up coarsely. Put in a bowl with however much crushed garlic you like, a sprinkle of brown sugar and pour white vinegar over the whole mess. Stir it up and let the bowl sit out, covered with a dry dish towel at room temperature, fermenting for a few days to a week. Then I put it all in the food processor and grind it up until it forms a paste. Sometimes I will run half of the mixture through a food mill to get some of the seeds out. Then I put the paste in a glass jar with a lid and keep it in the refrigerator. The ingredients are vague...I tend to change up the quantities every time I make it. Once in awhile I add a little bit of tomato paste for thicker paste.
posted by pluckysparrow at 8:44 PM on August 25

Thai chilis freeze very well, in my experience. One of my friends in college bought a huge bag at our school's farmers' market at the beginning of the year and pulled a few out of the freezer as needed. I guess what I'm saying is, don't feel compelled to use all of the harvest right away.
posted by HumuloneRanger at 9:59 PM on August 25

Som tam is what the Thais do with those little guys: they're too hot for curry. At street stalls they ask you how many you want in your portion. 5 isn't uncommon though I struggled with 2.

You can replace the papaya with green mango if fresh papaya is hard to come by in your jurisdiction.
posted by doiheartwentyone at 4:13 AM on August 26

We string them on heavy thread and hang them in the kitchen. Small peppers dry nicely and keep well with no special processing.
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:50 AM on August 26

I see the peck of pickled peppers joke has already gone through, but: adding a bunch of spicy peppers to a batch of pickles, resulting in spicy dill pickles, is absolutely great.

If you want to push the Thai aspect of it a little further, try replacing the dill in your dill pickle recipe with fresh basil, throw in a few of your chiles and let them stew for a while to really soak up those flavors.

Delicious, I tell you.
posted by mhoye at 8:43 AM on August 26

Along the same lines as applemeat: Spicy Filipino Vinegar. The suggestion to use it in a dirty martini sounds awesome.
posted by motherly corn at 11:54 AM on August 26

Dry them by putting them in the oven for a long time at a low temperature. Leave your home if you can't properly ventilate your kitchen.

Dried, you can use them as crushed pepper flakes with a pepper mill suited for crushed red pepper.

Good luck.
posted by hal_c_on at 11:12 PM on August 26

Harvest time has come. I got about 3 pounds each of the Thai Dragon and Kung Pao and about 4 pounds of Serranos. Most of them are being dried in my dehydrator but I've used several pounds so far in assorted hotness of Pepper Jelly (awesome on sausage in a bun); a few in 16 pints of beet borscht, also awesome; and a dozen pints of hot pickled peppers (still pickling).

Still planning to try the som tam but it requires some specialized shopping around here.
posted by Mitheral at 9:08 PM on October 6