Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, September 10, 2007
Bellingrath Gardens Hot Purple
This rather sinister looking photo shows the secret to a wickedly hot Thai stir fry dish I concocted on Saturday. The pepper is 'Bellingrath Gardens Hot Purple', and it certainly looks like it could be closely related to the Thai chile peppers known as prik (or prig) kee noo. Apparently, Prik Kee Noo is so beloved in Thailand there's even a pop song. I haven't any idea what the lyrics mean so I'm just guessing, but the video is cute.
Labels: peppers
7 Comments:
As purple is one of my favorite colours, I should try this pepper next year too. Having its own popsong is of course a great recommendation to try out this pepper too.;-)
Looks like it's a tiny little devil. I'm glad it was hot enough for you. Got a good laugh seeing the video.
The Jalapenos and cayenne we planted this year have been disappointing - not much heat. Not any hotter than the Hungarian cherry red pepper bought at the farmer's market locally. I think the hottest we've grown to date is either the Thai or one of the bird peppers tepin/pequin, the serranos were a bust. I want to get some seeds of the Bhut Jolokia, or 'ghost chili' purported to be the hottest chili in the world, twice as hot as the hottest habanero at over a million scoville units. Maybe that won't be a disappointment.
Yolanda Elizabet: It's a very ornamental plant. This year the leaves are dark purple, but the plants I had last year were not in full sun and the leaves were variegated (purple, white, green) when they first emerged. Czechoslovakian Black is also somewhat ornamental - pretty purple flowers and dark purple fruit maturing to deep red.
Ki: I'll be humming that song the next time I cook Thai food, that's for sure.
I sympathize with your pepper troubles. All of ours ended up hot to some degree, but not really fiery. But it's actually good in a way, because then I can load up whatever I'm cooking with a lot more peppers. All of them have nice flavor in addition to the heat. Except for the Bellingrath Gardens - there's not much flavor there, but definitely a lot of heat.
Oh, wow, I hadn't heard of the Bhut Jolokia. That's a serious pepper! Apparently you can get the seeds through New Mexico State U.
Thanks for the source of Bhut Jolokia seed. I'll send in an order soon so they don't run out of the seed and plant it in early summer next year. I'll let you know if it is as hot as they say.
Ki: I didn't know, until I went looking for more info about this pepper, that New Mexico State sells chile seed retail. I knew they had a big research center there, but didn't expect them to sell anything directly. I'll be very interested to know how this works out for you!
Lovely photo. Haunting and lovely all in one. :)
Sassy Gardener: Thanks! Haunting might be a better description than sinister. It does have kind of an early-Halloween look to it, now that you mention it.
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