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By Hot Juan, September 7, 2010 4:05 pm

The win­ner of our Chilli Hamper has now received his boxes of sauces:-

“Thank you so much for the won­der­ful col­lec­tion of chilli products. I am overwhelmed!”

Tony from Cambridge

We would like to thank all the vendors who provided us with there products for the hamper.

Hot-Headz, Cam­bridge Chilli Farm, The Chilli Jam Man, Mr Vikki’s, Chilli Pep­per Pete, Chilli Pep­per Company

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By Hot Juan, September 2, 2010 11:58 am

A quick catch up of art­icles from last month, if you sub­scribe to our news­let­ter, we email out this list­ing each month

Bolivian Rain­bow

Grow­ing Chil­lies On the Win­dowsill — We get a few vis­it­ors to the nurs­ery, who say that they wish they could grow chil­lies, but have no garden or green­house. It’s a pleas­ure to tell them that there are quite a few vari­et­ies which they can grow on their win­dowsills. This state­ment is often greeted with a smile, that broadens as I tell them that the chil­lies can live for quite a few years in the house.

More Super­Hot Chil­lies com­ing from the home of the Dor­set Naga — We hear that expert chilli grow­ers Michael and Joy Michaud (Pep­pers by Post & Sea Spring Seeds) have more super­hot chil­lies com­ing to burn us.

Spicymonkey’s Ninja Mon­key Sauce — ” I swirled my spoon around and pulled out a big enough dol­lop that was sure to test my mettle against this so called “Ninja Mon­key”, hold­ing it up to my nose I could smell the ginger, wasabi,soy sauce and habanero’s that were surely going to make this exper­i­ence both pain­ful and pleas­ure­able at the same time”

Ben­ing­ton Lord­ship Chilli Fest­ival 2010

Meg Proops Vis­its Ben­ing­ton Lord­ship — Chilli Fest­ival 2010 — Once again, the hardy Brit­ish pub­lic ignored the change­able weather to visit the 5th annual chilli fest­ival at Bennington.

Edible Orna­ment­als opens the Edible Kit­chen — To cater for the increas­ing num­ber of chilli afi­cion­ados who make the pil­grim­age to Bedford’s spe­cial­ist pick-your-own veget­able and chilli grower, Edible Orna­ment­als have announced the open­ing of The Edible Kit­chen at their Cher­wood Nurs­er­ies in Chawston.

Sea Spring Seeds & Pep­per By Post open day 22nd August 2010 — We live close to Sea Spring Seeds / Pep­per By Post, but due to our hec­tic sum­mer sched­ule we have never made it to their open day, but this year we pack the kids in the car and off we went, the only slight down side was the weather which just a little wet, with a sea mist rolling in.

Chilli Pep­per Com­pany — Born to Burn — “There! now thats not alot of ingredi­ents at all, so I was fooled into think­ing this sauce may not be that hot simply because it did’nt have any extract in and the Jolokia con­tent is only 30%..as i soon found out, “only” 30% is clearly more than enough to make this reviewer sweat bul­lets and wish he’d died!!”

Rus­sell Wil­li­ams explains how to make your own Oleor­esin at home — “I thought it was time to share my method of heat extrac­tion from the beau­ti­ful chilli pep­pers out there. You want to increase the heat without adding volume? Then Oleor­esin is for you!”

Fire Foods Launches Infin­ity Chilli Sauce — The first sauce made with the Fire Foods Infin­ity Chilli has been launched by Fire Foods, the first batch of just 40 bottles, so if you want one , order it now.

West Dean 2010

Images from West Dean Chilli Fiesta 2010 — Here are some images from our time at West Dean Chilli Fiesta this year, we hope to have a video guide to pub­lish later.

Simpsons Seeds Chilli Tast­ing — We all love a chilli, but try­ing to taste a wide range, and still have your pal­ate in good work­ing, or too sound a tad wordy, ‘func­tion­ally object­ive’. Well, we run tast­ing ses­sions at our nurs­ery, and will also be run­ning a small one at the Upton Cheyney Chilli Fest­ival. They start in mid Septem­ber, and go on for a couple of weeks, they also get hot­ter as the month goes on, as the Scotch Bon­nets and Habanero’s mature later. Prior to our chilli tast­ings, we have tomato tast­ings, in which we will add a few chil­lies, just to liven things up.

Scott Roberts — Chilli Let­ter from Amer­ica #9 — We’re in the middle of the “dog days” of sum­mer, where swel­ter­ing tem­per­at­ures grip a bulk of the United States with its tyrran­ical claws. The weather is not the only thing that’s get­ting hot in this coun­try; we’re enter­ing the heart of hot sauce and chile pep­per fest­ival sea­son here. Even though the biggest sum­mer event, Zest­Fest, has been post­poned until Winter, we still have the recently tran­spired Week­end of Fire and the Toronto Hot & Spicy Food fest­ival (the later, of course, tak­ing place in Ontario, Canada); plus upcom­ing in later August and Septem­ber are the I Like it Hot Fest­ival in Flor­ida; the Aus­tin Chron­icle Hot Sauce Fest­ival in Aus­tin, Texas; the National Buf­falo Wing Fest­ival in Buf­falo, New York; the Hatch Chile Fest­ival in Hatch, New Mex­ico; the Chile Pep­per Food Fest­ival in Bowers, Pennsylvania; the Hou­s­ton Hot Sauce Fest­ival in Hou­s­ton, Texas, and the North Car­o­lina Hot Sauce Fest­ival in Oxford, North Carolina.

An Intro­duc­tion to Wild Chil­lies — Cap­sicum has been known since the begin­ning of civil­iz­a­tion in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. After Colum­bus returned from his explor­a­tions, they were intro­duced to Europe and other parts of the world, and cul­tiv­a­tion of the plant began in Spain and Por­tugal in the early six­teenth century.

Chi­potle Chilli Mayonnaise

Atkins and Potts Chi­potle Chilli May­on­naise — Atkins and Potts are based in New­bury, Berkshire and is still a fam­ily owned busi­ness, they make all their products in small batches, I found this jar in one of our favour­ite Deli’s Bramble and Sage , just down the road in Sut­ton Montis, I often seem to find inter­est­ing products on their shelves, also their cof­fee is excellent.

Kush­cuisine Wins Great Taste Awards Gold — We have seen Kush­cuisine at the recent Fiery Foods In Brighton and at the West Dean Chilli Fiesta’s but we have yet to review any of there products, But in the mean time they have been very suc­cess­ful with the Guild of Fine Foods and have won a Gold Star for their Tomato Chilli Jam at the annual Great Taste Awards.

The Lakes Chilli Fest 2010 Show Report and images Part 1 and Part 2

Holy Cow! — Himalayan Hot Gar­lic Review- When open­ing this sauce, be care­ful, you will be hit by a strong gar­lic smell. You can get a hint of a slight lemon scent and a fair amount of chilli. It has the thin con­sist­ency that you would expect from a sauce, dip or dress­ing the ingredi­ents are well mixed and the sauce does not seperate.

The Smokey Joe Sauce Com­pany — Jerk Mar­in­ade — I like the taste of jerk, but I find most of the com­mer­cial ver­sions of this Jamaican fla­vour­ing tend to be a pale imit­a­tion of the real thing of which there are lots of dif­fer­ent ver­sions, but they all have a few things in com­mon, a com­plete depth of fla­vour with no fillers and they are all rich, warm and fra­grant with no short­age of spices.

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By Hot Juan, August 12, 2010 12:55 pm

The Lakes Chilli Fest — Levens Hall

The third Lakes Chilli Fest will be held on the 14th and 15th of August 2010 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Set against the spec­tac­u­lar back­drop of Eliza­bethan Levens Hall, vis­it­ors to the Chilli Fest can also explore the world fam­ous gar­dens where the sum­mer bed­ding and herb­aceous bor­ders will be at their best.

The Chilli Fest provides enter­tain­ment for all the fam­ily. Over forty stalls, some of which are new this year, will offer chilli-related goods such as jams, jel­lies, chocol­ate and sweets, ice-cream, sauces, seeds, plants, chut­neys, cloth­ing, breads, oils, cor­di­als etc. Vis­it­ors will be able to sample foods from Mex­ico, Thai­l­and, India, Morocco and Ger­many as well as many renowned products from Cum­bria, many of whom are going ‘hot’ for the occasion.

Lively Cook­ery Demonstrations

Live music will be provided on both days by the Mil­nthorpe Steel Band and enter­tain­ment by street enter­tainer Maynard Flip Flap, Salsa North West (join in and learn to salsa!) and Janet Allen the face painter. There will be a chilli trail in the garden and other games for chil­dren run by the garden­ing team together with all the other attrac­tions that the Levens gar­dens offer such as the children’s adven­ture play­ground, the wil­low labyrinth and ‘have a go’ croquet.

Lively cook­ery demon­stra­tions will be given by Nick Mar­tin, Prett Tejura of Curry Cuisine , John & Soy Rigg of The North­ern School of Asian and Ori­ental Cook­ing and Ricardo Rodrig­uez. There will also be inform­at­ive talks by Chris Crowder the Head Gard­ner at Levens Hall and Mar­garet Robin­son of Robin­sons Seeds and Plants of For­ton, Chelsea Gold winners.

This year our reporter Darth Naga will be report­ing from the show with his video cam­era, os if you see him, please intro­duce yourselves.

You can also book your tick­ets on-line click here

The latest list of stalls includes :-

• Ambal­ama Spices — Whole & ground spices, recipe packs and seasoning.
• Brian Kelly — Hand made fudge, truffles, toffee
• Bread Tree Co Uk — Finest Italian chilli products, spices, oils etc.
• Caf­feine Rush — Katy and David Wad­ding­ton — Fresh cof­fee, tea, hot chocol­ate etc.
• Cam­bridge Chilli Farm (Tim Murphy) — Chilli Sauces, jel­lies and rel­ish from chl­lies grown on farm
• Cha Cha Chilli — Bottled chilli sauce from Australia
• Chilli Pep­per Com­pany — Ger­ald Fowler — Chilli seeds, sauces, chut­neys and chilli medi­cinal products
• Com­pletely Chilli — Chilli Plants, Chilli Sauces, jel­lies and chut­ney from chil­lies grown on farm.
• Cum­brian Maid — Frozen yogurt and yogurt smoothies
• Cum­brian Salami Com­pany — Cum­brian Salami includ­ing Fire cracker cum­brian cho­rizo, glu­ten free sausage
• Curry Cuisine — Indian pickles, spice mixes, chut­neys, spice packs
• Daleside Brew­ery — Hand­craf­ted real ale includ­ing the Levens Morocco Ale
• David’s Chilli Oil — Medium and hot chilli oil
• Deer’n’Dexter — Premium meats from Red Deer and Dex­ter Cattle
• Dry River Chil­lies — Orna­mental and crop chilli plants
• Eng­lish Lakes Ice Cream — Loc­ally made ice cream
• Falacfe­li­cious — Veget­arian falafels served in a pitta
• Fire Foods - Home made chilli sauces and chutneys
• Friendly Food & Drink — Deli­cious hand-made pre­serves, chut­neys, sauces & spe­cial smoothies
• Gift of Oil — Phil Bian­chi — Deli­cious Single Estate Extra Vir­gin Olive Oils & Vinegars
• Spicy Mon­key — Ian Nixon — Home made curry pastes, curry powders, spice mixes
• Holly and the Ivy Co — Pro­du­cer of spe­cial­ised preserves
• R. S. Ire­land — Real Lan­cashire Black Pudding
• Jethro’s Mar­in­ades — Chilli Sauces, ginger sauces, mar­in­ades and dressings
• Kayes Tearoom & Bakery — Range of artisan cakes, slices and cheese and chilli slices
• Kendal Cor­di­als — Hand made high qual­ity cor­di­als, soft drinks and ginger & chilli cordial
• Lake­land Pic­nic — Loc­ally pro­duced ready to eat bur­gers and sausages
• Los Chileros — Chilli Pep­per Products
• Love Unlim­ited — Hand made and painted ceramic kit­chen and tableware
• Love Chil­lies (Stephen Wood) — Home Made jams, dips, sauces, chilli cloth­ing and gifts related to chillies
• Made from Marble — Hand craf­ted marble products includ­ing kit­chen items
• Mango Rays — Chilli, Chicken korma, veget­arian cur­ries, chilli smoothies
• More Wurst - Ger­man BBQ, Giant Wurst
• Moussa — Olives, Gar­lic, Nuts, Bak­lava, Feta Cheese
• Mr. Vik­kis — Indian fusion pickles
• Mrs. Kirkhams Lan­cashire Cheese — Unpas­teur­ised Lan­cashire Cheese from own pro­duced milk
• More — Patrick Moore — Artisan breads, desserts, cakes and pastries
• North­ern School of Asian & Ori­ental Cook­ing — Asian & Ori­ental meals to take away and eat at home
• Park­ers Pre­serves — Home Made Glu­ten & Wheat Free Chut­neys and pickles
• Pep­er­on­cino - Italian style gour­met chilli foods from seed to plate
• Port of Lan­caster Smoke­house — Tra­di­tional smokers of fine food, smoked meat, fish, cheese, game & poultry
• The Pud­ding Com­part­ment — Award win­ning pud­dings and muffins
• Ricardo Rodrig­uez — Cum­ber­land Saus­ages, lamb and bur­gers from own small holding
• Rico Pic­ante - Authen­tic Per­uvan Chilli Sauces
• W. Robin­son & Sons (Seeds & Plants Ltd) — Veget­ables and Chilli Plants — Chelsea Winners!!
• Savin Hill — Tra­di­tional breed meats, saus­ages, pies, bacons with chilli twist
• Scorchio - Hot sauces
• Sill­field Farm Products Ltd — Chilli bacon, saus­ages, pies — all own products
• Starlys Spice Co. — Spice blends to cre­ate dif­fer­ent Indian curries
• Stratta - Award win­ning fruit & flower vin­eg­ars, oils, dress­ings, pre­served fruits
• Terra Rossa — Exquis­ite Jord­anian and Moroc­can oils, harissa, herb mixes etc.
• Wine for Spice (Hyde Park Wines Lim­ited) - Cool refresh­ing spark­ling wine to drink with cur­ries & spicy food

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By Darth Naga, August 5, 2010 7:23 pm

Chilli Pep­per Com­pany — Born to Burn

Right, its lit­er­ally only 2 days to go now till west dean and i am doing my best to get some reviews out there of sauces that are actu­ally going to be at the show! Today I bring you a sauce made by the amaz­ing Ger­ald fowler of the “Chilli Pep­per Com­pany” (CPC hence­forth) who is most fam­ous for bring­ing us “10 minute burn” last septem­ber and things just have’nt been the same for Ged since! The sauce i am review­ing today is one that Ged is labelling as his “hot­test non-extract” sauce, so as you can proab­ably ima­gine, I am MUCHOS excited to be given one of the first bottles to review!!

Ingredi­ents: Toma­toes, bhut jolokia 30%, vin­egar, sugar, mus­tard seeds, spices.

(Review bottle gen­er­ously sup­plied by www.chileseeds.co.uk)

There! now thats not alot of ingredi­ents at all, so I was fooled into think­ing this sauce may not be that hot simply because it did’nt have any extract in and the Jolokia con­tent is only 30%..as i soon found out, “only” 30% is clearly more than enough to make this reviewer sweat bul­lets and wish he’d died!!

“Born to Burn” as this sauce is known is one of the sauces that i believe Ged is launch­ing at West Dean as this one isn’t on his web­site yet and as such it’s not avail­able to the gen­eral pub­lic, so i thought that i HAD to give this a video review, just to see if it war­ran­ted the “ultre hot” label and to give you guys an idea of what to expect at West Dean this com­ing week­end! Now without fur­ther ado lets get on with the video!!

Soooooo there you have it, a tasty little sauce that I TOTALLY under­es­tim­ated and you guys and girls out there can con­sider that a les­son well learnt! If you want to buy “Born to burn” then you should get yourselves over to www.chileseeds.co.uk and grab a bottle at about £6 and you won’t be sorry you did! FAILING THAT! you could just bring your arse down to the “West Dean Chilli Fiesta” this week­end, meet Ged him­self and buy a bottle right from his stall, tell him Darth Naga sent you, bet­ter yet just grab me on the day and ask me to come with you to his stall! LOL!

Until next time my chilli padawanz, don’t under­es­tim­ate the power of the dark side of the sauce!

Fla­vour	(9/10)
Heat	(9/10)
Pack­aging	(8/10)
Value	(9/10)
Over­all	(9/10)

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Please visit our spon­sor www.hot-headz.com