When the Peppers are HOT...

So I made a visit to my favorite local farmers market on Sunday.

I love hot peppers, and I saw a pepper I'd heard about but never seen.

GHOST peppers.



I only bought a few, as I didn't want to just didn't want to eat them whole or even cut them up in food. They are too hot for that. In fact, they are the second hottest pepper on record (1,000,000 SU. (The Carolina Reaper is the hottest at 1,500,000 SU).

No, I wanted to dry them and make some infused olive oil. I like to use infused pepper oils for sautees. They give a great flavor. 

So I dried my peppers in my oven, as it has a drying setting that I rarely use. I dried them for 8 hours overnight at a low temperature.  Here's the result.



They look burnt, but they are not. I placed them I a plastic bag and crushed them up. I tasted a piece the size of a grain of salt and thought my head was going to pop off. That little bit was potent and HOT!

I remembered that I had some African birdseye chili peppers, aka African devil peppers in the cabinet. I keep these around.



I keep a baggie of these around. One or two of them flavor up a dish. They are hot, but Ghost peppers are up to ten times hotter.

But here's the result. The tall bottle is the ghost pepper oil, and the short bottle is the African devil peppers oil.

Aren't those lovely? I bought the bottles at a Container store on Saturday for two bucks each. Those will sit up in a kitchen cabinet in the dark for a couple of weeks. The oils should be good and hot by then.

I tried a little of the African devil pepper oil to sautee some two chicken thighs this morning. I used a half teaspoon of it, and dilute it the skillet with more oil.

It was good, and it was hot. Not the blow your head off hot, but noticeably hot and spicy.

Alas, I am afraid to try the ghost pepper oil. I may not recover. Maybe that bottle will just be... ornamental. Something very pretty to look at.

But it was something fun and different. I was thinking of making these and giving them as Christmas gifts.

I can do it, but maybe I should try it with a milder pepper.

Much milder peppers.