We’ve never grown chilies before, and we’ve undertaken growing three Scotch Bonnet plants in our conservatory this year. My wife has taken on the challenge and she’s done a superb job so far. All three plants are healthy and thriving, and we’ve got our first blossoms.
We don’t typically eat super spicy food, but we enjoy a bit of heat in our homemade stir fries, arabiatta, bean con carne, salsa or pizza.
We are fully aware that this variety is extremely fierce with a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of 350,000-400,000, but we don’t intend to eat these culinary nuclear bombs raw or in sweat inducing quantities. We’re going to dry them and add the chillies as ‘flakes’ to liven up certain meals.
I also intend to make our own hot sauce that will deliver a bright, fiery, floral flavour, and I will probably go down the path of a simple Haitian style recipe that I’ll share when I make it later this summer.
Onto the plant and chili itself. From what we understand, Scotch Bonnet is a short, bushy plant that produces a good crop of globular red spicy fruit, with a thin waxy flesh.
Nutritionally, dried Scotch Bonnet chillies pack an incredible punch too as they contain iron, thiamine, niacin, magnesium, riboflavin and vitamins A, B and C. Chillies are also abundant in phytochemicals (capcaicin and flavenoids) making them a superb source of antioxidants.
I’m genuinely excited about harvesting the first of our chillies in the coming weeks and months.
When I lived in France I used to grow chillies in pots on the terrace and they were prolific croppers. When they were ready I used to freeze them whole and they were perfect to use chopped from frozen into chilli, stews and soups. Drying them sounds like a great idea too. It’s always good to have a bit of heat in hand in the kitchen to perk things up! ????
Depending on our harvest, freezing may also be an option. Only problem with these chillies is they’re stupidly spicy, so if we took out a frozen one, we’d only use a very small amount and probably have to discard the rest. But I think we’ll have plenty to dry, freeze and make into hot sauce.