It's "Fiery Foods Show or Bust" as James Beck and his cohorts drive the Spicy RV from Houston to Albuquerque.  Spicy RV’s first Friday night we descended upon Chunky’s Burgers in San Antonio, Texas. It would be safe to say Chunky’s was catapulted to national fame when Adam Richman from The Travel Channel’s Man vs Food took up the Four Horsemen challenge. James Beck of EatMoreHeat had to throw his hat into the ring and see what this burger was all about.

The Four Horsemen burger is ludicrous....

The story continues here.

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Editor's Note:  Our company, Sunbelt Shows, Inc. is joining forces with Bel Soley, Inc. to assist in rebuilding the Haitian economy.  I am urging my readers to contact Brian and render any assistance to this project that you can.

Brian Hays writes: I am the Chairman of Bel Soley, which is a company dedicated to development in Haiti by building for-profit enterprises for the sale of agricultural products domestically and for export. See www.belsoley.com. We have a U.S. distribution company based in Boston and a Haitian subsidiary that operates primarily in the southern part of the country (Les Cayes), with a country manager located in Port au Prince. [He and his family are OK.] We grow some of our own crops and buy other crops from small farmers. We started exporting mangos, breadfruit and hot peppers last year and were just ramping up our pepper exports when the earthquake hit. We are producing several thousand pounds of peppers a week now. Our hot peppers are habaneros from imported seed and the local hot pepper, a habanero variety called 'Piment Bouk'. Our target was to get to ship out 24,000 pounds per month by the end of the year. As you can imagine, all exports from the country have stopped for now. Port au Prince is the only real port of debarkation in Haiti. With the government destroyed and transportation over-burdened, we do not know when we can begin shipping again - although we are optimistic.
We are selling our crops locally, but the current regional market is questionable and we don't know if the market can absorb the volume. Domestic distribution beyond the immediate locale is doubtful. Furthermore, our business model is based on export income. So you can see the problem.

It has always been part of our business plan to make a good quality and truly uniquely Haitian pepper sauce.  All the pepper sauce sold in Haiti now is either Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce. We know there is a good domestic market and with something different and of good quality, there should be an export market as well. But our plan was to move into pepper sauce later this year, after our fresh pepper export business was better established. Because of the earthquake, we would like to accelerate our move into the sauce business. By making sauce or mash from the peppers, we will be able to save our crops and also begin to provide edible foodstuffs to the domestic market, which is already showing signs of food shortages. As I mentioned, mangos, papayas, bananas and pineapples are readily available as a base and we can easily grow carrots. We have or can grow a range of more exotic tropical fruits as well, including passion fruit, soursop, sapote, acerola (Barbados Cherry), tamarind and more as flavorings.

Depending on the cost, we believe that we have adequate capital to set up the hot sauce operation, including bottling.We think we have found away to import equipment into the country (by by-passing Port au Prince). What we we don't have is information and expertise. Starting a business is difficult in the best of circumstances (I know, have started quite a few), but in this chaotic environment where we know next to nothing about the new business, the only way we can off-set the risk is with good advice and good partners.

* We need recommendations of experts in the business that can advise us on the sauce making process, the bottling process and any other practical, basic opertaions;
* We need recommendations of experts in food safety (we intend to meet all HACCP requirements - not only to allay fears about products from Haiti, but because it is the right way to do things);
* We need recommendations of reliable, honest equipment vendors who will provide the right equipment - not too much or too little - and collateral expertise in setting up and operations.
* We need recommendations of US (or EU) importers of pepper sauce (and fresh peppers too, since we will be back in that business).
* Any other ideas, suggestions or sources of information would be also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for your time and willingness to help. We hope to turn a bad situation into something good. If we can get this done, we will have a few new, exotic pepper sauces from the fiery country of Haiti!

Brian

Brian J. Hays
Chairman, Bel Soley, Inc
703-421-9211 - home office
703-217-6251 - mobile

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My friend Marco del Freo, who lives in northern Italy, is embarking on a fascinating adventure.  Marco, who owns vineyards, a winery, and olive trees, also grows chile peppers (peperoncini in Italy) and he is now making a habanero-infused extra-virgin olive oil by pressing the habaneros with the olives.  Since any olive oil that's infused with any other substance can't be legally called olive oil, he has decided to call it Habanero Nectar.  In anticipation of assisting him in importing it, I have formed a division of my company called Sunbelt Food Reps.  More on that soon, but here's the process.  At left are the olives in the background and the habaneros in the foreground.

They are mixed together (he uses both red habs and 'Fatalii') and ready for the pressing.

On a conveyor belt and headed toward the press.

The final result after pressing.  To be continued....

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Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday of the year.  Reasons?  There's no baggage associated with it, like religion, gift-giving, or dressing-up.  And it has all the things I love most about a holiday: family, good friends, food, drink, and football.  So, the feasting team here at the SuperSite is serving up the following Thanksgiving articles with recipes:

A Barbecued Thanksgiving, here.
Spiced-Up Thanksgiving Trimmings, here.
Holiday Sizzling Stuffings and Leftovers, here.
A Chile Lover's Mexican Thanksgiving, here.

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Lately the Internet has come alive with images of pepper pods that transcend the bounds of common decency.  Some unscrupulous people are actually posting them in their blogs to drive more traffic!  Imagine!  John Perea of Hot Rod Pickles (yes, a real company name) sent me the image to the left of a tumescent pod that I call "Horny Jalapeño."  Then there are the images of the pods that women love the most, the infamous 'Peter Peppers', and they are flushed red with excitement.  Notice that they are in the hands of a person of the male persuasion.  I'm not sure if that's gay or not.  And finally, my very own co-author and close friend, Dr. Paul Boland, a highly decorated Regent's Professor at New Mexico State University, insisted, over my vehement protests, that we publish a photo of an immature--but precocious--'Peter Pepper' in our new tome, The Complete Chile Pepper Book. The world is going to hell in a garden basket!

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Here's an excerpt from my new book with Dr. Paul Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book. The book is hardcover, 336 pages, 250 full-color photos, 85 recipes (with food shots).  Is is organized like this:
--About Chiles
--Top 100 (or so) Chiles for the Garden
--Capsicum Cultivation
--Processing and Preservation
--Cooking with Chiles

If you want a signed copy, buy the book here then send me a stamped, self-addressed envelope along with your name and dedication, and I will sign a faceplate for you that you can stick into the front of the book.
Dave DeWitt
P.O. Box 4980
Albuquerque, NM 87196

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Yes, they eat chiles in Finland.  My friend Jukka Kilpinnen has reported on his his bonzai chile plants in Finland, and there's a Finnish Chile Association.  They recently conducted their Chile-Eating Championship that featured the deadly 'Naga Morich', a cousin to the 'Bhut Jolokia'.  Read all about it here!

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With the publication of my new book with Paul Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book, imminent, it makes sense to start featuring some recipes from it.  This one will help you use up some of those excess poblanos in your garden.

(Photo by Norman Johnson; food styling by Denice Skrepcinski)

Poblano Pepper Rings
Since poblanos make some of the tastiest chiles rellenos, it makes sense that they fry up deliciously. Why not dip these rings in guacamole?

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
3 cups vegetable oil
3 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeds and stems removed, cut into 1/4-inch rings
1 cup buttermilk

Combine the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Heat the oil in a large pan until it just begins to smoke, then lower the heat slightly. Take the poblano rings 4 at a time, dip them in the flour, shake off any excess, then dip them in the buttermilk and back into the flour. Drop them into the hot oil and fry until lightly browned.

Repeat with the rest of the rings and then drain on paper towels. Serve them warm.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Heat Scale: Mild

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I think I've died and gone to chile heaven because my new alliance with MexGrocer.com is proving to be very tasty, indeed.  Here's the deal: in return for writing posts to their blog, here, Nacho Hernandez, who runs the day-to-day operation of MexGrocer, sends me just about any product (they carry about 1,500) I want in order to evaluate it.  Recently he sent me the entire product line of chile pastes from MexiChefs that included chipotle, ancho, pasilla, chile de árbol, and guajillo.  My intention is to try them all, but I got stuck on the chipotle paste.

First I made a simple grilling sauce using butter, chipotle paste, red wine, and garlic powder and simply basted a pork chop while grilling it.  The result was delicious:

Well, that was easy, so I just put the paste in the refrigerator, where it stores nicely in its plastic tub.  A few days later I roasted a chicken and there were plenty of droppings left.  I scraped them out of the roasting pan, put them in the freezer and later removed the congealed fat.  I added homemade chicken stock, some flour dissolved in water and made a gravy.  I further thickened it with the chipotle paste and served the resulting gravy over garlic mashed potatoes.  Later, I wanted to spice up some baked potatoes, so I just mixed the paste half and half with butter and in 15 seconds I had one of the best toppings I've ever tasted.  Get the idea?  Order this great paste here--it will make your cooking life a lot easier!  One pound, which will last forever, is just $7.95!

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It's one of my favorite times of the year--the green chile harvest in New Mexico, with some fresh red chiles thrown in for good measure.  Many of us go to our favorite roadside stand--or supermarket for that matter, and buy a bushel or two of the fresh pods, have them roasted there in the cylindrical metal mesh roasters, and then take them home, peel them, remove the seeds and freeze the chile for later use.

That's all well and good for us lucky ones who live in New Mexico.  But what about the rest of the world that yearns for the good green stuff?  Well, thanks to modern technology, there are two simple solutions.  The first is to buy the pods roasted, peeled, and frozen.  A new source, which carries the 'NuMex 6-4 Heritage' and 'NuMex Big Jim Heritage' is the Biad Chili Company, here.

Another handy source is El Pinto, which sells jarred flame-roasted green chile.  I've eaten and cooked with this product dozens of times and it's simply great.  Order it here.

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