Chili Peppers ....... the secret ingredient !

How many kinds of chili peppers are you familiar with ? Which one/s have you used or do you use any at all? Being born and raised on Java, I consume these hot spicy fruits all my life. I use them as one of the ingredients in my cooking, as the main ingredient in the famous Indonesian hot sauce sambal, or eat them wholy with my lumpia.

In my first year of living in the United States (1982), I didn't know where to buy fresh chili peppers (the hot ones). So I had bought dried mexican peppers (the only one available in the store at that time), crushed them, separated the seeds and planted them in pots. Didn't have much luck. For a year, I 'suffered' the taste of preservatives in the sambal made and imported from ......... Holland ! Yeah... Indonesian Sambal, made in Holland, exported to the United States, consumed by a javanese woman who now lived in California.

SUNDAY FARMERS MARKET IN SACRAMENTO

Life got better on my second year when I discovered a farmers market in Sacramento on one Sunday morning. There under Highway 50, between Broadway and X streets, on block 8th through 10. Huge gathering of the Sacramento Valley farmers, all here forming a unique Sunday morning community. About 3 blocks away, occupying a smaller lot is a separate section of the Asian farmers market. The vendors, the shoppers, and the merchandise ..... are from Asia. The place I had been longing for. The market where I find 7 different varieties of peppers, hot, mild, and sweet types...

The green or yellow small peppers are the ones I usually consume direct, bite a bit with my lumpia. The red hot ones are for making sambal. The long red and sweet I use to make dishes with.

In the summer, these peppers are sold for $1 per pound (0.4 kg). Sometimes I buy the whole plants that are loaded with chilis. The farmers don't have time to pick them? They also cost $1 per plant and I get two or three times the chilis ... and I get to enjoy picking them off the stem while watching wild turkeys in my backyard.

Today I must have bought about 20 pounds of chili peppers. Summer time is the time to get these chilis. It's like having a harvest season and store them to use for long the winter. Chilis freeze well without losing their flavor or its 'heat' intensity. I leave the stems on when freezing, it helps protecting the flavor and heat intensity.