Thanks guys! It was a different technique than I've done before. I prepped the chicken thighs by rinsing, drying, rubbing with peanut oil and seasoning with salt and pepper, then grilling indirectly until it was cooked through. The rest of the ingredients went into the blender to make a smooth paste. I took the pestle from my suribachi and lightly bruised the chicken pieces with it, but didn't hit them so hard that they fell apart. That's so more of the paste absorbs into the meat during the next step. I poured the paste into a saute pan, turned the heat up to medium, added the chicken and basted it with the sauce as it thickened up in the pan. Most of the sauce ends up on the chicken pieces... then back to the grill over direct heat until nice and crispy but not burned.
The Eggplant was savory and slightly sweet. Steaming it before frying in oil meant that the eggplant didn't soak up a huge amount of oil and the results were lighter. I left the chiles out of this dish because of the sweetness, so I could use it as a "cooler".
The green beans came out crisp-tender with the bright flavor of the tomato blended with the savory of onion, garlic and coconut milk that complimented, but didn't smother the taste of the green beans. I also chopped a couple Omnicolors into the beans for a touch of heat.
If anybody's interested, I'll pm the recipe(s).
When I checked on the chiles this morning I see all the Chinense varieties are podding up and continuing to grow in size. The Cheiro is making lots of small, round, pointed pods about the size of a dime so far. They're staying a light green rather than going Ivory like Bonnie's Cheiro Recife did last year, but similar size and shape. The pods are so small in fact that the plant seems to have more energy to grow than the Yellow Bhut next to it, and is almost half again larger.
The Magnum Orange Hab is about 2 weeks behind where it was at this point last year, but that being said, is still chugging along predictably and podding up quickly. I figure I'll start to see ripening pods on it by the end of this month or early August.
The Maya Red in the airpot is looking solid. Lush, dark green foliage with lots of flowers and pods, It actually started setting pods a couple weeks ahead of the one in the ground, but that one is twice the size and the pods are looking like they'll be the larger of the two. The same is true of the Yellow 7 chiles. The one in the airpot is about a foot tall and the canopy is a little wider than that... the one in-ground is about three feet tall, the canopy is about that wide and the pods are growing more quickly as well
The JA Hot Chocolate is gonna be a big producer for sure. The first pods are about as big as they were when I bought them last summer, so I hope they begin to ripen soon.
Unfortunately, the Trinidad Perfume that was failing to thrive looked like it finally gave up the ghost. Not sure why, but whatever... I pulled it up to give the Omnicolor room to expand into. Good thing too, 'cause the Omnicolors grew out about a foot in the last week, and up another 6 inches. I pinched back everything that hung out past the edge of the raised bed, but there's still a boatload of pods on the 2 plants and they still have a little space to expand into.
The Ochsenhorn and Krimzon Lee Paprika continue to ripen... I think they may be ready to pick sometime next week. I keep finding more Gochus starting to ripen, so it'll be time to dig out the rack and start making ristras pretty soon. I'm starting to see ripening Chimayo's too, so August looks like time to start making powders again. I'll get out this afternoon and see if I can get some pics then.
Have a good hump-day all!
only kidding my friend. Awesome work and you will soon have great harvests ^_^
