Preserving Your Chillies - Dehydrating

 Help Me ! What Do I Do To Preserve All  Dehydrated Chillies ?

OK. You've managed to grow a successful crop of chillies for yourself but now you have a problem. Well, not really a problem; more a challenge.

What can I do to preserve my chillies so that I can use them all year round ?

Fortunately people have been faced with this problem for thousands of years. As a result there are a number of solutions that you can use. Some of them ancient, some of them quite modern.

This ezine article will examine, in detail, the process of dehydrating chillies with an electric dehydrator.

However, before you start, there are a few basics that we need to cover to help you get the most out of your garden and the harvested fruit.

1) It is universally agreed that the best approach to harvesting your chillies is what is known as a 'staggered harvest'. No - you don't have to be drunk. What it means is that you harvest the chillies a number of times throughout the growing season. This will ensure you maximise the production from your plants. If the chillies are left on, the plant believes it has achieved it's reproductive goals and few new fruit will be produced. Staggered harvesting ensures that the plant 'keeps on trying' for the full length of the growing season.

2) Unless you are specifically after green chillies, the best approach is to harvest ripe fruit with tight, shiny skins that are firm to the touch. Fruit that are ready should come off the plant easily. If you need to use any force it's probably best to leave it a few days before trying again.

3) Give the fruit a wash and have a second look to weed out any fruit that have black spots as these will usually rot and/or go mouldy.

Before we start, lets look at the sole limitation of this technique.

- the only real limitation is that this process is not suitable for freshly picked green chillies. They turn black and the ones that don't rot taste terrible. For drying fresh green chillies you need to use the pasado technique. I'll cover this in a separate article.

Thick fleshed varieties such as Jalapenos , Roccotos , or most of the New Mexican varieties work very well in the dehydrator. This is a distinct advantage over air drying which is not usually fast enough to dry the flesh of these varieties before they begin to rot.

OK,

4) You must split the chillies open. It's up to personal choice whether you remove the pith, seeds and stem or not. I do, as I am really after the flavour of the chilli, not as much heat as I can get. I simply cut off the stem, then cut the fruit in half lengthways, then scrape the seeds and pith out together. That's it !

5) Set the dehydrator to 45-50 degrees Centigrade and pre-heat for 5 minutes.

6) Lay the scraped out chillies inside-up on the trays of the dehydrator.

7) Put the lid on and let the drying begin !

Your next question, of course, is; How long do they take to dry ? This is where we have to experiment and learn what works for you in your environment with your chilllies.

Things that affect the drying time are many and include;

* amount of fruit you are drying

* the type of chillies you are drying

* altidude

* the external temperature

* the external humidity

* the temperature setting

* the power of the dehydrator

Don't start freaking out. Dehydrating is a slow process and is essentially something you can't get wrong. As a rule of thumb, 1kg of chillies (not thick fleshy ones) will take 7-8 hours on 45 degrees Centigrade.

YOU KNOW THEY'RE DRY WHEN THEY BREAK INSTEAD OF BEND. The thicker fleshed chillies may not quite reach this stage, i.e. they will flex a little, However, they will still store safely, especially if you freeze them.

8) Store your newly dried chillies in airtight containers and preferably out of direct sunlight as this tends to shorten the shelf life.

DO NOT put your dried chillies into plastic bags unless, for some reason, you intend to freeze them. The film used for most plastic bags allows oxygen to pass through it freely meaning your chillies will oxidise and break down as fast as if they were sitting in the open air.

Check your container of chillies after the first four or five days. If there is any moisture on the sides then you need to dry your chillies a little more. If not then they're done to perfection.

In an airtight container, out of direct sunlight, your dried chillies will last for years.

9) Use your dried chillies. You have two main options here.

First, you can grind the chillies to flakes or powder when required. Use a coffee grinder, food processor, or mortar and pestle to grind them down to the size that you're after. CAUTION - take care not to get chilli powder in your eyes or lungs !

Secondly, they can he rehydrated by simply soaking it hot water for 10 minutes. They are then ready for use.

Nigel publishes a monthly newsletter covering all aspects of chillies that is FREE to subscribers. You can subscribe and receive a full, illustrated copy of his Grow Your Own Chillies eBook as a free gift.

Nigel Laubsch is one of the world's leading chilli experts and has grown studied and cooked with chillies for over 20 years. Much of his experience was gained travelling through Indonesia, China and Fiji. In 2005 Nigel presented the world's first Chilli Sauce Appreciation course at the University of Western Australia and has received rave reviews for the innovative content.