My love for hot foods started when I first discovered Mexican Food. During my years in Guam I ate regularly at a small Mexican restaurant run by of all people a Korean! He had some great home made salsas. My travels to Mexico and the States just fuelled the fire for some hot chillies. Later I discovered Chinese Dumplings. There is a small restaurant in Pitt St Sydney that sells some of the best ones around. Peter, the owner make great sauce from dried chillies, we ate it by the bucket load!
Then one Sunday arvo back in Sydney my neighbour was throwing out these bushes, laden with red chillies, on the footpath for the council vegetation cleanup! "Whoa" I say, she replies: "these are just ornamental, you can’t eat them".
Well yes you can! Tthe bushes were saved and planted, a fine crop of birds eye chillies. Next was a trip to Queensland and I found these bell shaped wonders, Yes, they came home too. Soon I had jalapeños, habaneras, you name it I grew them. Then I started growing chillis in pots and giving them away.
Along with my home grown tomatoes, summer was fresh salsa time, or I would buy a whole yearling sirloin, cut it into strips brown it then stew it along with handfuls of every variety of chilli known, into the most wicked chilli dish! We even experienced chocloate chilli in a fondue!
After we moved to the Central Tablelands at around 900m we managed a couple of seasons where the weather was kind enough to let us grow small amounts of chilli's in the summer. We discovered a delicious recipe to pickle the chillis and allowed us to eat them on pizzas and nachos throughout the winter. Sadly though the winters have killed my bushes. And the right conditions to grow these plants are rare. Not to be deterred, however, a greenhouse or igloo for my chillies will come soon in the new garden.
