| I grew Kalosca Paprika Peppers which are now beautiful & red. How do I get the spice Paprika from these peppers? Do I dry them and grind them? Also, what can I do with the Tabasco peppers? |
| All you have to do is dry your paprika peppers until they're very dark and turn leathery or hard. It's easier to get them completely dry if you cut them into thin strips, and dry them in a dehydrator or warm oven (at 120F). Here's some info on making tobasco that I found at the Chili Head Digest: http://neptune.netimages.com/~... The process is actually called "fermenting". You can ferment your peppers the same way you ferment other vegetables. In fact, the following is similar to how the very first tabasco sauce was made, according to my Tabasco cookbook. 1. Crush or coarsley chop your tabasco peppers. 2. In a large bowl mix the tabasco peppers with salt. The ratio is 3 Tablespoons salt to every 5 pounds of peppers. Put the mix in your crock. (Instead of mixing together you could also just layer peppers/salt/peppers/salt in your crock). 3. The salt will extract the juice from the peppers. You should begin to see liquid forming. Keep pushing down the peppers, the idea is that you want the liquid to cover the peppers. If after 48 hours not enough juice has formed, add just enough water so that when you squish the peppers down they are submerged in the juice. 4. Let the crock sit at room temperature. It will start to ferment. You can tell it is fermenting because you will begin to see little bubbles on the surface. Allow it to ferment until you no longer see these bubbles. You can continue to allow it to "age" if you want. Just keep smelling it. When the aroma is something you would find pleasing in a sauce, then stop aging it. 5. At this point, you can process it using your favorite sauce-making process. I usually put the fermented pepper-mash into a blender with a wee bit of cider vineger and puree. Then I strain into bottles. You could also just use the juice as-is. Or you could use the juice mixed with a little cider-vinegar. It is really up to you from here! Enjoy! |
