Spice it up

Over the weekend we harvested, dried, seeded, and ground Criolla Sella peppers into chili powder.  Criolla Sella is a Bolivian pepper that is a thin-skinned, beautiful orange colored, not too hot pepper that is very flavorful.  We find the scent is sort of smoky.  The subtitle of this posting could also be: "Why it is easier to buy chili powder at your local market!"  (But then you'd miss out on all the fun and it wouldn't taste as good.)

The enlarged photo below shows the criolla sellas in various stages of development, from ripened (bright orange ones) to green one, to blooms.  Look at all the white blooms.  These produce in copious quantities.  Seriously, it is hard to keep up.  A restaurant in Lafayette asked me to grow these but since they are 45 minutes away, the cost of delivering the peppers is really prohibitive to making it an economical enterprise.

Criolla Sella Peppers

Once harvested, I put them into a food warmer on trays to dry them.  I need to get a food dehydrator which might speed up the process.  We put it on low heat and leave for a couple of days with a crack in the drawer to let the moisture escape.

Drying the peppers

Once they feel crispy and dry I remove them from the warmer.

Dried Peppers

Next I pull the green stem off all of the dried peppers.

Using a paring knife I cut the pepper in half and remove the seeds.  I did make a batch in which I left the seeds in.  This was very good as well as it added more heat and can be used as a spice on anything you like.  This time, we're making chili powder or ground pepper without seeds.  This is the very time consuming part.  I enlisted Laura Lee to help me to do this.  If you don't have forced labor, I heartily recommend making pepper with seeds included!  I might also add that if you don't have gloves, don't put your fingers anywhere near your eyes, even after you've washed your hands.  This is experience talking here folks! 

De-seeding the peppers

The whole batch is now dried and de-seeded and ready for grinding into powder.




Dried, de-seeded peppers

 This is the easy part as you let the trusty Cuisinart do the work for you.  In the old days you'd use a molcajete, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle tool to grind the peppers into powder. 

The modern molcajete

I put it on the fastest setting and let 'er rip while I gather an empty spice container and funnel.

After it has ground for a while, keep checking until you have the consistency you like.  If the picture below was scratch and sniff, I'd invite you to scratch your monitor and your room would fill with a smoky, flavorful aroma that tells you that a liberal sprinkling compliments red beans and rice, gumbo, mexican rice or virtually anything you want to put in on.

Ready for bottling

I use a spoon and canning funnel to get the chili powder into a recycled spice jar.




Bottling the ground pepper

 Ta da!  The finished product.  Ready to enjoy.  This batch made 8.9 ounces of palate pleasin' chili powder.  Let me know if you'd like a sample and I'll bring some to you.  You'll move your can of Tony Chachere's to the back of your spice rack!




8.9 ounces of Criolla Sella Pepper