Since we moved to an inner city apartment and didn't have a backyard any more, the only way to grow plants was in pots, and what better plants to grow than chillies! I planted a couple of plants, but the one described here is the Jalapeño Fire Eater.

I bought the plant seedling from Bunnings, so it's quite readily available.

So here they are planted in their pots.


Skipping about 6 months down the track and a bug infection, the plant finally produced some nice fruits. Here's the first chilli harvest.


Now came the fun part, what to do with them. Originally I thought to make them into a chilli paste, but decided against it since there weren't that many fruits. Drying them out seemed like a good idea.

To dry the chillies, you can either hang them up in a dark dry place and leave them to dry naturally, or if you want to do it quicker, use an oven or a dehydrator. I have a portable glass oven, so the chillies went into that on low heat (130C - 150C), turning them over every hour or so. It took about 24 hours to dry out the lot above.

It's important to turn the chillies over and keep an eye on them so they don't start cooking. If it looks like they are cooking, turn the heat down. Also keep the oven door/lid slightly ajar to let the moisture escape.

Once the chillies were dry, a mortar and pestle does the job of crushing them up.


Now the end product is a fine chilli powder that's very hot.


-i