Three Mile Island Pepper

Last week we showed you how we dehydrated jalapeno peppers and then ground it into pepper that we use to flavor dishes.  I used a lot of it today on top of some purple hull peas & sausage over white rice.  It added some flavor depth - hot, but not swell up your tongue and watery-eyes hot.

Our son, Russ, saw what we had done and wanted us to try to dehydrate and grind into ground pepper some of his peppers.  He had a very productive habanero pepper plant or two this year.  He put up four gallon-sized zip loc bags of habaneros in his freezer.  This week he brought over two of the four bags for us to process.  He had already cut them into rings so they'd fit better in the freezer.

We poured them onto the trays of the dehydrator while they were frozen and then used a fork to spread them out evenly so they would dry in a uniform fashion.

Pretty soon we had every rack filled.  We would have to do this in two separate batches.  I was a little concerned about them being frozen, buy they dried just the same.

The habaneros shrunk up to half its size in no time as all the water was removed in the drying process, leaving just the heat.

While hot and dry, Tricia put them into the food processer and gave it a whirl or two.  Here's the part where we wanted to be really careful.  That red dust in the air would be really painful to get in your eyes.  It also would not be pleasant to breathe it in.

Here's what a habanero looks like whole.  It's candy-apple red and has a pointed tail.

Two gallon-sized ziploc bags of peppers yielded this much ground habanero pepper.  We have two more to process and then we'll be done.

I haven't worked up the boldness to try this yet.  I can handle jalapenos.  I just don't think I could do habaneros.  These things are just really hot.  Radioactive hot.  I think we'll label this container, "Three Mile Island Pepper."  It'll put hair on your chest, for sure.

A Great Alternative to Ground Black Pepper

We haven't purchased Black Pepper in quite some time.  Instead, we've been making our own ground pepper using Criolla Sella peppers (a South American variety) that we grow, dry and grind.  They have a unique bright orange color, a smoky aroma, and a deep flavor that is just perfect for seasoning our dishes - a little heat, but not an over-powering spiciness.

The plants are prolific producers of peppers that grow to a maximum of about 3 inches long and go from green to day-glo orange in the matter of a day or so.  We harvest every couple of days.  We only have two plants in the garden, but really that's all we need.  The plants grow to about 3 feet tall, bushy, with lots of foliage and produce well in dry or wet conditions.

Ripened Criolla Sella Peppers ready for picking

We'll bring the ripe peppers in, wash them up to clean them.  Sometimes there will be spider webs or other debris that we have to get off of them prior to processing. Then we pull the green stem and cap off of the pepper.  I've tried several different ways to dry them and the one that I think works the best is to split the peppers in half.  I then use a potato peeler to run along the inside to remove the seeds.

I remove the seeds if I want to make ground pepper, but sometimes (especially for seasoning chili) I'll leave the seeds in to allow a little more heat to come through. Then I'll put the split peppers in our food dehydrator trays and turn it on.  I'll check on them from time to time and when one is dry enough to crumble in my hand, it's ready!

Dried Criolla Sellas

I'll put the chopping blade on the food processor and dump the dried peppers in. How about the color of these peppers?  Aren't they more exciting looking than dull, boring black pepper?

Ready to Grind

I'll just turn the processor on the highest setting and let it chop.

Chop Chop

I'll check on it and when it is ground to the consistency that I'm aiming for, I'll remove the blade and use a funnel to pour the pepper into containers that I save.

Ground Orange Pepper

The ground pepper is very aromatic.  I have yet to be able to make a batch without sneezing!

Ah, Ah, Ah Chew!

We make a batch every week or so and continue to fill up old pepper or seasoning containers that we have saved.

Spicy Criolla Sellas

We have used different seasoning mixes in the past like Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning or Slap Ya Momma, but I think that we're going to experiment with making our own by adding salt, garlic powder and some other spices, and mixing it all up real good in the food processor and funneling it back into the seasoning can. We'll let you know how that goes.