The May Chilli Newsletter

G'day

The astute amongst you noticed that I accidently left March's intro on last month's newsletter - thankyou to those people who picked it up.

Now, I'm not sure what's going on in the world but the chillies-down-under.com newsletter is getting bigger and bigger every month due to there being more and more news and information events pertaining to chillies.

If it keeps up I may have to look at fortnightly publishing - not sure yet. If any of you have a view on this, let me know.

You'll also notice that I've included a couple of new items that I intend to have an appearance every month - hope you like them.

On top of all there I have added some extra info and a new section or two.

OK, let's get into it;

Food Quote Of The Month

So here's the first offering - one of the more common ones, but a classic none the less.

"It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done, or what you think you can do. There’s a confrontation with destiny awaiting you... Somewhere, there is a chile you cannot eat."

Daniel Pinkwater in A Hot Time In Nairobi

Chilli Tip Of The Month

This is the second new section I intend to include every month.

Prior to freezing your fresh chillies, de-stem and de-seed them if that's what you usually do. You'll be grateful for the effort later when you thaw your chillies out for use and they're ready to go straight away.

Measuring Chilli Heat Levels

Chemists can now use carbon nanotubes to judge the heat of chilli sauces. The technology might soon be available commercially as a cheap, disposable sensor for use in the food industry.

Richard Compton and his team at Oxford University, UK, have developed a sensitive technique to measure the levels of capsaicinoids, the substances that make chillies hot, in samples of chilli sauce. They report their findings in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal The Analyst.

The current industry procedure is to use a panel of taste-testers, and is highly subjective. Compton’s new method unambiguously determines the precise amount of capsaicinoids, and is not only quicker and cheaper than taste-testers but more reliable for purposes of food standards; tests could be rapidly carried out on the production line.

The well-established Scoville method – currently the industry standard – involves diluting a sample until five trained taste testers cannot detect any heat from the chilli. The number of dilutions is called the Scoville rating; high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can also be used, but this requires bulky, expensive equipment and detailed analysis of the capsaicinoids.

I'll let you know how this development unfolds and if these tools become available.

Fire In Asia's Largest Chilli Market

GUNTUR, India: Guntur chilli yard, known as Asia’s biggest agriculture market yard, burnt to the ground on Saturday in what is being seen as one of the biggest fire accidents in Andhra Pradesh. The yard, spread over nearly 60 acres, was reduced to ashes within few hours after it caught fire around 9.30 am.

Chief Minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in Hyderabad, said the yard caught fire after a lorry hit an electric pole while reversing within the market yard premises at 9.30 am. No loss of life or injury has been reported, but over three lakh bags of chilli — worth nearly Rs 30 crore — went up in flames. Thousands of bags of chilli outside the yard were also destroyed, bringing the total damage to approximately Rs 85 crore.

The worst-hit were chilli farmers, who were already reeling from the damage to their crop due to unseasonal rains last month. These farmers had brought their produce to Guntur over the last few days hoping to get a better a price and were left with nothing.

This is a huge loss to the global trade in chillies and prices have been climbing steadily since the fire as there is less and less chilli available to meet demand.

New Page - Chilli Book Reviews

It's no great secret that I read a hell of a lot of books and many of them are food related.

I woke up the other morning to get ready for work and the first thought that popped into my head was why not share this with you visitors to the site.

If I can save somebody from buying a dud book or encourage them to read an excellent one, then why not do it.

There's not many there yet but I'll keep plugging away at it, so keep checking back. Have a look here -Book Reviews.

Links Page Updated

There's a great one for vegetable growers in Perth, Australia and a number of good sites for obscure North American and Mexican ingredients for Australian subscribers.

Business Exposure Program

I have reluctantly refused to do this for risk of turnning the newsletter into a classified ads publication, and thereby annoying the very readers that have taken this to the number one chilli website in the Southern Hemisphere.

With the amount of demand out there I have been trying continually come up with a way to help as I am extremely pro-small business.

Finally I have put together a system I believe will work and cost almost nothing for business owner or hobbyist to construct their own marketing/advertising page on this website.

If this is something you may be interested in, you can read more here on the Business Exposure page.

Any questions can be put directly to me at the contact page.

Gold Membership This Month

This sauce is made to an original Mayan Indian recipe by one of Mexico's oldest and most popular sauce manufacturers - El Yucateco Salsas Y Condimentos, and is a brilliant example of the Yucatecan style.

If you are interested in Gold Level Membership you can read more here at the Gold Membership page.

May's Recipes

Laksa Lemak

• 200g vermicelli noodles
• 400g hokkien noodles
• 1 tablsp peanut oil
• 70g (1/4 cup) laksa paste available from many supermarkets any asian store
• 2 x 400ml cans coconut cream
• 500ml (2 cups) chicken stock or water (only use the water if you really can't get nay stock)
• 1 lemon grass stem, white part only, bruised
• 600g firm white fish fillets (snapper is good), cut into 3cm pieces
• 12 black mussels, debearded, scrubbed
• 1 bunch snake beans, trimmed, cut into 8cm lengths
• 150g bean sprouts, trimmed
• Fresh mint leaves, to serve
• Lime wedges, to serve

Use a fork to separate the noodles and then drain into a colander. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and then add the laksa paste and cook, stirring, until aromatic (around 3 minutes).

Add the coconut cream, chicken stock and lemon grass and stir to combine and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes or until well combined.

Add the fish, mussels and beans to the pan and cook, covered, for 5 minutes or until the mussels open. Discard any unopened mussels.

Divide the noodles and bean sprouts among serving bowls and ladle the hot laksa from the saucepan over the noodles. Sprinkle with mint leaves and serve immediately with the lime wedges.

OK, that's it for this month.

It's getting newar the end of the chilli season here in Perth, so I hope all subscribers have enough chillies preserved to see them through the winter months.

Wishing you a life full of flavour

Nigel