Er Jing Tiao

Rare! The famous hot pepper from Sichuan China. This is the real variety. A chili used for chili oils, chili crisps, doubanjiang, fermenting and pickling. Classified as mild-hot, especially if cores and seeds are removed. Pods are deep red, 5-8 inches long, straight or "j" shaped. Thin-skinned and very productive. Makes a great, mild-hot Sambal Oelek if chopped and fermented with 3% salt. Used to impart deep red color and flavor to chili oils. Most Sichuan chefs add hotter peppers to mix in, but this is the foundational pepper. Capsicum annuum. Usually 2-3 locules. Bushes compact and spreading. Starts flowering very early-remove flowers-tiny fruits until plants get over a foot high. In dry weather, pods can be left on the plant until ripe and soft-wilted. Traditionally sun-dried and finished in a dehydrator. I partially dried pods for cooking by sewing, hanging on cotton strings (see image). Final drying was at 120°F in a dehydrator. Seeds were harvested from fresh pods and washed with some dish soap to remove some capsaicins and stickiness. No C. annuum was grown nearby, so these seeds should be very pure. There are some imposter varieties, but I compared this to Er Jing Tiao dried pods from China and this one is identical. A very useful and lovely chili that isn't crazy hot. I had a hard time finding the correct seeds and am happy to have a good supply of them.