After 3 years of having one tiny thai birdseye chilli this year I decided to go nuts on the chilli front and plant 4 plants. We always seem to eat them, but I may have been a little ambitious. Even though we had a bit of an issue with diseases they were still quite prolific.
We had so many chillis! At one stage I was picking 15 a day.
So what do you do when you have way too many chillis and your family are all non chilli eaters? The good thing is there are many ways you can keep them around to enjoy for the year ahead. Here are a few things that we did:
Dried Chilli
If you can't get your hands on a dehydrator you can easily thread your chillis on a piece of string and hang them in a dry dark spot to dry out. With our dried chillis we made a pot of Harissa (recipe here) and also topped up a kitchen staple of chilli flakes. A word of warning - dried chillis feel 10 x hotter than fresh ones so use gloves! If you get chilli burn check this post out here.Frozen Chilli
We got this tip of Jamie Oliver, if you want fresh chilli all year round, pop it in the freezer. We've done this for years and it's a great solution as we tend to eat more chillis over winter than we do over summer. They keep their form pretty well if you're using the chillis sprinkled over dishes.Chilli Sauces & Pastes
As mentioned we made a beautiful North African inspired Harissa. I've also had a go at making Sweet Chilli sauce (I am yet to perfect the recipe).Other things you could do
Some things we're yet to try but it's on the list with the supply still coming in.- Hot chilli sauce
- Chilli Oil (using dried chilils)
- Chilli Relish
- Ground Chillis (so good in hot chocolate over winter)
- Chilli Chocolate Ice cream
