The February Chilli Newsletter

G'day

Welcome to the chillies-down-under.com February 2011, Chilli Newsletter.

I hope you're all well, particularly those affected by natural disaster lately, both around Australia, New Zealand and around the world - our thoughts are with you.

I must be feeling guilty about how little work I did on the site last year. So far this month I have;

- trawled through my photo library and now 95% of the recipes have a photo with them, usually of the finished recipe (sometimes just an ingredient)
- created a Twitter account to provide notification of updates to the site as they occur (more detail further down)
- added a third column to pages to provide greater useability and site navigation
- added a new page that contains Chilli News Feeds from Google and Bing (more details further down)

Also, I would like to thank everyone who sent me emails of support after the previous newsletter. The volume received and support offered was quite humbling - thankyou.

As a side note, you'll notice the number of subscribers has increased only slightly from last month. This is because I have cleaned out the 100+ dead email addresses that had accumulated through last year.

Newsletter Subscribers: 2232

Avg. Unique Daily Visitors: 392

OK, let's get into it....

Food Quote

Every morning one must start from scratch with nothing on the stove. This is cuisine!

Larousse Gastronomique (First Edition: 1938) - Encyclopedia of gastronomy - primarily French cuisine, but later editions have begun to embrace other cuisines as well.

Chilli Tip

It usually appears as a light-brown to white patch in the area where the fruit would get maximum exposure to the sun. There's only really one way to stop this and that is shade your plant, either by some sort of shade structure or growing taller plants around it.

If you do have sunburnt fruit, it's not a massive problem. Simply cut away the burnt patch and the rest of the chilli is still fine to eat !

Site Updates On Twitter

So, if you tweet and are interested in keeping up to date with the site, follow me at @chillidownunder.

If you don't tweet, I recommend you have a look at Twitter - it's really just like the rest of the web, there really is some good stuff in there once you wade through all the crap !

P.S. I am also setting up a Facebook presence for the site for the same reason, however, at the moment there is some problem getting the updates to feed to it automatically so this will be something I announce properly next month (hopefully).

World Chilli News To You

These are the same feeds I use to keep myself up to date and now you have access to them as well - Chilli News

Not only that, I have added a tool to allow you to post your own chilli news (e.g. local festival, new variety discovered, etc) to the page to be viewed and commented on by all chillies-down-under.com readers.

Questions From Subscribers

First Name: Scott
Country: Canberra, Australia
Your Question:

I brought two chilli plants and the kids took the description tags.

Can you please give me an email address so I can sent photographs of the plant, flower and fruit.

I have big fruit but not sure if it is jalapeno and if it stays green or goes red. Please help.

G'day Scott

Mate, I'm sorry but I don't do ID's from photos for 2 reasons;

- I'd spend all my time doing it as I get a ton of requests

- half the time it is impossible to identify the thing anyway (cross-breeding, fuzzy images, immature fruit......).

I have a section on the website for the common chilli varieties and that should help you, at least with the jalapeno. If not, the FAQ page has a link to some chilli variety databases.

All chillies change from green to another colour (red, yellow, black/purple, orange, or white) - there is no green chilli variety.

All the best

Nigel

First Name: Dave
Country: Melbourne, Australia
Your Question:

Firstly, great site and thanks from all chilli lovers! I've got a few little questions I was hoping you could help me with. I've got about 28 plants in pots, this being my third year of growing, with about 20 different varieties.

1) One of my favourite cultivars is one I've bought from Bnnings, a seedling from the "Grow your own" brand. It's called Fire, and it's a large and long (avg 12cm) with mild to med heat and intense flavour. Just wondering if you'd know the correct name for it, or would it be the company's own creation?

2) I have a commercially bought dorset naga which produces orangy yellow fruit of only medium heat, yet everything I've read and seen of them suggests they should be red and at the top of the heat scale. Any ideas? I preserve my chillies and this is the only one that doesn't take well - goes mushy.

3) I've got two red rocotos, which are unbelievably prolific and super hot. The fruit size is a bit impractical for jar preserving. Any suggestions for keeping them other than freezing (which is what I do with the rest)?

Incidentally, my favourites which weren't on your survey are choc hab, trinidad scorpion and purple tiger. I'm very keen to get choc jolokia going, but I have a miserable success rate with propogation. Might have to get a heated tray.

Thanks again for a great site. Dave.

G'day Dave,

Thanks for the questions

1) I looked into it and cannot find that it's a standard variety. However, chillies cross-breed very easily so I would say that they have developed a stable hybrid and are marketing it under their own name. This is a quite common practice these days and I think it will eventually spur an interest in 'heirloom chillies', eventually - a bit like the surge in popularity of heirloom tomatoes that we see these days.

2) I'd say you've been dudded. Not all suppliers to the nurseries and Bnnings are as reliable as those that have been around for years. They're not necessarily being dishonest, more likely disorganised and mix-ups have occured. Try contacting the seedling supplier and let them know what happened.

3) Not really Dave, unless you get larger jars. The only other thing I can think of is slicing them into strips or quarters and then jar preserve them.

Cheers

Nigel

Share Your Recipes

Iwan from Perth's - Chilli Preserving Tip

and

Dennis' from New Zealand's's - Marinated Fish With Chillies

Thanks Guys

You can share your recipes at the Reader's Recipes page and all new recipes will be featured in the newsletter and attributed to you.

Sharing a recipe will create your own web-page for each recipe that you can then share with friends and family.

Recipes

Pork Curry In Crispy Cases

Indonesian-Style Barramundi

Indian Beetroot Salad

Caribbean-Style Habanero Sauce

Please enjoy 'em - all feedback welcome.

OK, that's it for this month.

I hope you've found something worthwhile in the revived newsletter and I look forward to putting together the next one for you.

Wishing you a life full of flavour

Nigel

I have created this book to cater for both the experienced chilli lover and the beginner. As a result it is an incredibly useful resource for simple and complex recipes and a great learning tool. It also contains some of the best cooking secrets that I have picked up over the years such as;

• How to create tender, melt in your mouth BBQ ribs everytime, and



• The secret of making the most amazing Satay sauce that I was taught in Sulawesi, Indonesia