companion plants

These 2 plants have been growing side by side... a chili padi

and this thorny weed. 

I kept this thorny guy coz I noticed very early on that the insects loved it, and it was such a fast grower that it could survive with both insect attacks plus my pruning.

The chili padi has so far shown better condition leaves and less white fly attacks. I hope this God-planned companion plants carry on helping each other out.

Fallen chilis

Normally I find maybe one or 2 chilis on the ground at the most. Today lots fell off the plant, no idea why. 

All still useable coz it must have happened overnight. If I miss any and they are on the ground for more than a day, there will be damage.

Chili Padi sprouted

I chucked 2 or 3 chili padis in some coconut coir. Kept it dark and damp. Today one chili sprouted.

I've moved the pot to an area with some indirect light. A close up...

I dunno how I am going to separate them. Maybe I will just plant the lot as is.

Weeds

I generally dont have a clean-looking veggie garden. Weeds grow everywhere. I pull them out or cut them back randomly, when any grow too much. Sometimes I cover areas with cardboard to reduce the growth. 

But after watching this video I have a new-found respect and knowledge about them. 

I am letting a lot more wild sprouts grow a little before cutting them back slightly. If I find a recognisable plant that is edible, I will let it grow naturally. The ones I plant usually end up diseased or weak or just get eaten up by whatever. 

The biggest leaves on top of the pic are from a chili I planted. Its really wrinkled, damaged and weak. Every other leaf is from nature. Just have a look and compare how healthy they are!

Sick or mineral deficient but still producing heaps of chili

This plant was putting out so many leaves, even though patchy yellow and wrinkled, that I decided to keep and see if it would produce any fruit. Now it has started to fruit, giving me the biggest success so far, with chilies hiding everywhere I look.

Chili from God

 A chili plant just sprouted between my Thai Basil. It was a bigger variety.

19July2021 update: They ripened after harvest!

Neem chili garlic brew pellicle

This bucket has been going for months. A mixture of neem leaves and twigs, chili and garlic waste, all sitting in water with the lid loosely covered, is exposed to the most extreme conditions. I use the water to spray on my plants, mostly on the indian lettuce and kangung... both of which are mostly affected by pests. Today there was a thicker pellicle than I have seen in a long time.

The catalyst must have been the chili. There were a lot of scrapes in there from my last batch of chili sauce.

too few and tiny

So far I've managed maybe one or 2 chilis per week.

Too few to make chili sauce (that was my plan when I started growing chili), so I just cut up whatever I get and add to my lunch curry.

sickest looking plant giving the most chilis

Out of the 3 plants I have, 2 of them have more yellow than green leaves. But they are producing more chilis!! 

Turning red

 The chilis are ripening! starting to change colour...

What a joy to see this!!

Oh no! From a high to a low almost immediately... I spotted one on the ground :( 

It must have dropped yesterday coz the side touching the ground was already damaged.

I was hoping to let it ripen fully on the plant but I think I will harvest now as soon as I see it changing colour. Will leave the 2 on the plant till tomorrow. Pray they are ok till I pluck them tomorrow.

btw this is a really goood/clear video on how to pluck chilis...

 

Some chilis making it

I have 3 chili padi (bird eye) plants. All 3 have yellowing leaves, 2 worse off than the 3rd. Looks like a nutrient deficiency of some sort, according to the forums. The healthier one had a few chilis, and now I just spotted one on the weaker plants.

31 Jan 2021 update: just noticed a couple of older leaves that are not wrinkly or yellow. That's nice to see.

First attempt at FERMENTED chili sauce

Loosely followed this guy...

What I did differently was add garlic to the ferment, as well as per the video, fried and added at the blending stage. Also I added sugar.

Some of differences side by side for easier comparison... 

	Joshua Weissman	GV could-be-wiser-man
chili	540g	221g
chili padi	nil	68g
garlic	nil	103g ferment; 53g fried
vinegar	150ml white vinegar	75ml pineapple vinegar
water for ferment	1150ml	746ml
salt for ferment	51g	23g (2% total weight)
sugar	nil	2TBsp + 1 tsp
oil	0.5 cup	0.25 cup rice bran oil
fermentation	5-14 days	24 days
brine added to blend	42ml	2.5 TBsp

The ferment looked a bit iffy. I was preparing myself for throwing it all out. 

But after emptying it, it looked ok. The white cloud like patches in the mix turned out to be the garlic disintegrating. Tasted the brine and chili, it all tasted and smelt good. 

Made up a batch of 2% salt water just to rinse the chili and garlic, coz the top layer had some kahm yeast on it. 

The brine was sieved multiple times, each going through a finer mesh. First the big sieve to separate the main solids from the brine.

Then a finer sieve to remove, I think, some garlic that had disintegrated. Washed out all the sieves then ran it through multiple layers of cloth. This got rid of the yeast, and was the slowest process.

The resulting brine was more translucent. Tasted salty and hot.
Then came frying up some more garlic.

note: the final taste wasn't as garlicky as I expected. I used half the chili the video asked for but more than 3 times the garlic. Either our garlic is shit or our taste buds are dull from all the chili and garlic we consume everyday. I think a combination of both reasons.

Blended and added the rest of the ingredients according to the video. The result...

The true test was the family having it for lunch with some roast chicken. All said it was better than the last 2 batches :)

How I can improve...

 - add some pepper to the ferment

- try ACV instead of PCV for the vinegar. PCV is milder in taste.

- will add garlic only at the final stage. the fermented and fried garlic must have taken out some of its strong flavour. It definitely made the chili milder

- I wont ferment more than 14 days to minimise the loss of heat.

- add water and psyllium husk to add body/volume. I didnt so this time coz I wanted to taste what fermented chili sauce was like without any unnecessary ingredients. 

trying fermented chili sauce

 I've done chili sauce before. Now to try fermented chili sauce. I will loosely follow this guy for the method...

And for the brine measurements, this guy...

And for the general recipe, this lady even though its not fermented..

For chilis I used mainly regular green chilis (221g) for bulk. At the supermarket, the red ones were from China so I ended up buying the green local ones. Slightly more expensive but better to support local. I added a little homegrown ones (41g) I got from my cousin, also green, slightly hot. And a third, chili padi (27g), for heat. 

I added garlic (103g) at this stage, but according to the 1st video, he did not ferment it. Instead he fried it and added after the ferment. I will taste the sauce when the ferment is done, and if it's not garlicky enough, I will add a 2nd batch of garlic, ie fried garlic. 

Water was enough to cover the ingredients, 746g or ml.

Salt was 0.02% of the weight of ingredients plus water which worked out to 23g.

This was how it looked the next day.

I dont have a weight on top. I will stir it everyday to keep an eye out for mold. 

I'm not sure how long to keep it before going to the next stage. The video said anywhere from 1-2 weeks.

3 Nov 2020: some bubbles already appearing.

5Nov2020: Kahm yeast (I think) on top

Online literature says its not harmful and still useable. I dont like the sight of it but will wait and see...decide after 7+ days. Smell is still nice.

chili plant

Neighbour passed me a few chili plants to try out...

24 Dec 2020 update: I have 3 growing. My neighbour warned me it would attract pests. I have managed to keep them at bay. But the leaves on 2 of the plants are really off.

The 3rd one is looking better.

Flowers have appeared. I hope they survive and get pollinated. 

The 3 plants were planted at the same time, and next to each other. This healthier one gets the most sun, so maybe that's a priority for the next chili plant I try growing. 

31Dec2020 update : the flowers aren't doing well. the petals are all dropping off.

5Jan2021 update: chili!!!!!

I spotted a couple which managed to fruit. There's hope yet.

28 Jan 2021 update: Despite the leaves being yellow, the fruit are doing good. 

3 Feb 2021 update: Changing colour!

Homemade chili sauce - pt 2

29July2020
I am about to make my 2nd batch of chili sauce. The first was good, but a few things need to be adjusted...
- less vinegar. I thought the taste was a bit too sour
- a tiny bit more sweetness (maybe by adding more onions or some sweet fruit?)
- a tiny bit more heat (I will add chili powder)
- cheaper without sacrificing quality. The total cost for my first batch was too high. 2 ingredients I used that had a high price tag were chili and vinegar. For chili, I cant get cheaper than whatever the going price is. For vinegar I used Bragg apple cider vinegar which is the most expensive. This time I will use white vinegar (the middle bottle)

The bottle on the right we use for cleaning.
Here are the ingredients for the 3 types of vinegar...

So the middle looks good. We will see about the taste after it's all done.

Here are prices of the chili sauces I have bought before. Maggi is the most popular and well established brand here. Its too sweet for me.

 If my calculations are right, that costs RM1.09 per 100g

This one is ok tasting.

 Cost is cheaper at RM0.78 per 100g.
I am sure these ones in the regular condiments aisle are filled with chemical preservatives, fillers and colouring.

The one that is pretty good in natural ingredients and kept in the chiller veggie section is this, my favourite...

The cost is the highest at RM4.65 per 100g.

My first chili sauce was RM3+ per 100g. It cannot match in price compared to the regular condiment aisle sauce, but definitely is cheaper than my favourite. And it had better ingredients and zero chemicals, and most importantly tasted good. There is still room for improvement. I will try to calculate more accurately each time I make some.

And here we go....
250g chili

The sauce at the end wasnt hot enough. I used the same quantity and type of chili. Just goes to show the main ingredient is so variable that it is impossible to reproduce the same flavour each time.

80g garlic

I upped the garlic but still wasnt enough. Next batch will be 100g.

200g onion

I might reduce this to 150g next time coz I want the garlic and chili to be the main taste.

Vinegar 200ml. Water 400ml. I reduced the vinegar coz the last batch was too sour.  The final product was a bit runny, so maybe 300ml water next time. Simmer for 15 mins until the garlic is soft.

Its late I will continue writing tomorrow. Good nite ZZZZZZ

Blend...

Sieve out the bigger bits if you was a smooth sauce, back into the cooking pot.

Now with low heat, add the rest...
Salt 1tsp, sugar 4 TBsp (I start tasting after 3 and stop when I like the level of sweetness) , chili powder 3 tsp (tasted after each tsp. 3 was not enough but I stopped), lime juice from half a lime (maybe less next time).

I couldn't get the same taste as the last batch, and ended up adding a bit of soy sauce 1tsp and cumin powder 1tsp as an experiment. The taste was ok but different. It gave the sauce a slight Indian taste. 

The final product was too runny so I added half a tsp of this...

psyllium husk!!! It worked! Just thought of it instead of corn flour which most people use to thicken a sauce. Only a tiny bit was enough. And give it time to work its magic :)

A short video of the bottling so you can see the texture...

Bottled...

The one on the right looks exactly like its original contents :) Shame I haven't achieved its taste yet.

Heat was not a good as the last batch. I will need to figure out the best way to increase the heat if the chilis are not hot.

Homemade chili sauce

There are a million videos, well just about, on Youtube on how to make chili sauce. I wanted to achieve 3 things... get it to taste like my favourite shop bought one, achieve the same texture, use only natural preservatives. This was my first try.

My favourite chili sauce is found in the cool section of the vege/fruit at Tesco. It only has one ingredient that I don't want, the preservative, and it not even named on the bottle. But it's a lot better than the ones in the regular condiment aisle.

I used this method of making it, but not the same ingredients.

From my reading, I am hoping to preserve the sauce by using garlic, salt, sugar, vinegar and lime.

These were my ingredients...

red chili 241g after removing tops (14 pieces)

garlic 52g peeled (10 cloves)

salt 1 tsp

sugar 3 TBsp

apple cider vinegar 250ml

red onions 164g peeled (4 medium)

lime 1 big

This was the final product

This was the stuff that was sieved out, removed from the final sauce. 

Didn't waste it. Put it in the fridge to be used in our future cooking that requires chili & garlic.

I got 365g of sauce from it.

Thoughts after making it...

- The main ingredient is so variable in heat. The final product was hot but not unmanageable. I have no idea how to control the heat for future sauces. 

- More garlic. I love garlic so will up it to 80g next time.

- Less vinegar or lime I'm not sure. It was a bit sour on the 1st day. The next day I added it to a McDonald's burger at it was fine

- Now I know regular sauces have a TON of sugar. I used 3 tablespoons in this small amount of sauce and it wasn't sweet. Regular chili sauces are more sweet than sour.  

- Reduce the price. Chili is expensive here, and so is apple cider vinegar. I cant skimp on the chili. So probably will have to use cheaper white vinegar the next time. Or make my own vinegar!!