The ghost pepper: Eat with caution

So why am I growing the ghastly ghost, also known as the bhut jolokia? Just for the experience I guess. I grew one plant last year, purchased at Meinke’s, my favorite little garden center in Niles. It was shaded by the rather thuggish Swiss chard and did poorly, remaining under a foot tall and producing two fruits. And the fruits weren’t much hotter than a serrano, according to my Teflon mouthed husband.

But the wrinkly little fruits, with their odd, sparse prickles intrigued me, turning from green to chartreuse, then pumpkin orange and finally, red. So I saved the seeds and tried again. This spring, with all the rain, felt like failure waiting again, but I was not thinking, not considering the place the plant grows best, in the monsoon region of India.

My single plant is easily three feet tall and four feet wide, inhabiting considerable real estate in my community garden plot. Things grow well there, with untreated well water and rain water from the cistern, and I amend the soil in my plot with plenty of compost. At last count it had 32 dangling, wrinkly green fruits, and two that had turned orange. And they are considerably hotter this year, too hot to eat … scary hot.

This, of course, has me wondering what I can get from it next year. I once dug up a pepper plant in the fall, kept it over winter and replanted it in the spring. The mature plant bore early and bore heavily, the blocky peppers all turning red by late summer. What if I could get this thing up to tree size?

Stand the heat, and get in the kitchen

Meanwhile, I needed to figure out what to do with the ripening ghost peppers. I cut one open, without touching the inside and touched the knife to my tongue. It took a couple of seconds before the sear came, but it did. Even milk did not help for a while, and I later made my ear burn by scratching it with the finger that I used to hold the stem while I cut the pepper.

Now I needed my husband’s opinion. He likes things hot and uses hot sauce on everything. He sucked the edge of the cut pepper, paused and said, “That’s really hot; I couldn’t, like, chew it.”

That was all I needed to hear to determine that I would use only one fourth of the pepper in my Roasted Pineapple Habanero Sauce recipe. And it is enough; trust me. The heat in my sauce builds slowly, but continues to build to a nice, really hot, but not ridiculous, finish.

I decided to save a few to make hot pepper spray for non edible plants that get eaten by critters, so I chopped a few of those up and threw them, seeds and all, into a jar of ordinary vegetable oil and placed it in the garage, with a large easy to read label.

Then, I used three of them, deseeded and without the membranes, to make a hot pepper oil for cooking. I simmered the peppers in a cup of grapeseed oil, let them steep until cooled and strained through cheesecloth. This was also labeled and will keep refrigerated for about a year.

The pineapple sauce was something inspired by the way in which these peppers are rated – one of the hottest peppers in the world. Now, that being said, much depends upon soil, weather and stage of ripeness, and last year, a friend grew some ghost peppers that were barely hot at all. So my advice is taste before you waste. Had I put a whole pepper in my sauce, it would have been thrown out.

Just take this seriously and use care. Wear gloves, have milk handy and scrub everything the peppers touch. Remember that this is the same stuff used to make tear gas.

Roasted Pineapple Habanero Jam

½ large sweet onion, cut into quarters

1 small fresh pineapple, peeled and sliced *

1 red bell pepper

¼ to 1 whole habanero or ghost pepper, deseeded and membrane removed (wear gloves)

2 cups sugar

1/3 cup cider vinegar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon corn starch

* You may substitute a can of pineapple chunks in heavy syrup (not in juice), drained.

Roast the onions, pineapple and peppers on a heavy, rimmed cookie sheet, in a 400-degree oven, or on your grill. When the vegetables and pineapple are soft and caramelized (browned a bit and sticky) take them out. You may need to turn them once with tongs. Try to slip some of the skin from the peppers if possible.

Add the roasted vegetables, pineapple, cider vinegar and sugar to a large stainless steel skillet and bring to a boil. Add the piece of habanero or ghost pepper, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let the mixture cool a bit and use a stick blender to puree it slightly, leaving small bits and chunks. A blender or food processor works too, but don’t over process.

Combine the lemon juice and cornstarch to form a paste and stir it into the mixture. Return to a boil and boil gently for 2 or 3 minutes, stirring to release steam. Turn off heat and stir occasionally while cooling to release moisture. Bottle and chill.