Elizabeth McCorquodale considers some plants that are both easy to grow and capable of giving a spicy kick to your food
When we think of growing hot and spicy plants in this country, we usually think of growing chillies on a windowsill or in a greenhouse, and perhaps, at a pinch, growing a row or two of radishes. If we like spicy food that’s about it, isn’t it? Well, as you might expect, the answer is a very definite “No!” There are several delightfully hot and spicy plants that happily make it onto the Hot List, and without even resorting to naming the spicy greens such as watercress and mustards that we take for granted! But the lovely thing about growing and experimenting with all these hot and spicy plants is savouring the different types of heat they each generate, from the burning fire of the hottest chilli and the buzzing heat of a Szechuan pepper, to the lovely rounded tones of horseradish and the rarely grown wasabi.
WASABI
Wasabi growing by water. Photo courtesy of The Wasabi Company.
Wasabi (Wasabi japonica) is a slow-growing, shade-loving perennial, native to Japan and other parts of Eastern Asia. It likes damp soil and a humid summer and is hardy down to –5°C, which will take it through most British winters, though a fleece blanket or a straw mulch around the crowns should ensure that it makes it through even the severest weather.
Wasabi can be grown on the edge of a shady pond with its feet wet, or, like watercress, it can be grown in a large pot placed in a saucer of water. I haven’t actually grown wasabi in this way, but I have always grown watercress under my cool greenhouse bench in a 30cm pot sitting in a deep saucer constantly topped up with fresh water – and with terrific results.
When you first receive your wasabi plant, pander to it a bit by planting it into a pot of good compost so it can develop a good root system before it must tackle the harsher conditions of the garden. Place it in a cool, shady spot and water it well for 4 or 5 weeks (never allowing it to dry out!) before transplanting it into its permanent home. Once it is in place, mulch around the crown with well-rotted manure or a good, rich, garden compost, then feed it occasionally with a balanced fertiliser and simply let it grow! It will reach just over knee height when it is established. You can even harvest a few tasty leaves through the first summer, but you must wait for the end of the second summer before you can taste the unique, delicious flavour of the rhizome. Just pull up the whole plant, break off the rhizome and replant the crown, then mulch it and bed it back in for winter.
Wasabi is a very beautiful plant that is not bothered much by pests or other troubles, and the taste of fresh wasabi as opposed to pre-packed preparations (which are, incidentally, mostly mustard and horseradish!) is incomparable.
RADISHES
Radishes are probably one of the most underrated common veggies, possibly because they are so easy and quick to grow – some can reach picking stage just 25 days from sowing – and come in all shapes and sizes and with very different levels of heat. ‘French Breakfast’ is mild and crispy, while ‘Icicle’ is fiery hot. Of course the heat of radishes increases as the temperature rises and growing conditions become drier, but cool, wet weather results in milder flavours. There are several wildly different radishes, the most common of which are the daikon radish, with its long, white root of fairly mild flavour, and the tougher, fiery black or Spanish radish (which, incidentally, loses all its heat as soon as it is cooked), as well as many different varieties in just about every colour of the rainbow. But for the hot and spicy garden there is really one clear winner, and this one doesn’t, at first glance, even appear to be a radish at all. The rat-tail radish is grown not for its root (though you can eat it), or even its leaves (radish leaves are a much overlooked salad green), but for its seed pods. Like all the brassicas, the flowers of radishes mature into edible, long, chilli-shaped pods, and the rat-tailed radish pods are delicious, fiery hot, crisp and crunchy. When sowing the rat-tailed radish, forget completely its crunchy, fast-growing relations and instead plant it as a long-season crop about 46cm apart in rich, well-cultivated soil. Provide a framework to support the plant too as it grows, as it can reach 90cm or more over the season.
The pods should be harvested when they are about the thickness of a French bean and before they become fibrous. They can be served in any dish where you would enjoy chillies, or can be served up with a dip as crudités. The flavour is like a cross between mustard and horseradish, and the appearance is very attractive, both in the garden as it is growing, and once harvested, on the plate.
HORSERADISH
Horseradish is another of those plants that, if it were rare, would be prized far more than it is; familiarity definitely breeds contempt in food circles. The lovely, hot, rounded bite of horseradish is hard to beat, but it is rarely seen on any list of ingredients except in the form of a sauce as an accompaniment to roast beef or smoked and oily fish such as trout or mackerel. The heat of horseradish does, though, team exceptionally well with potatoes, in mash or in potato salads, and it is perfect to stir into rich winter stews, dips, pâtés and salads. One of the best ways to use it is to finely grate a little horseradish root into a pat of melting butter and toss a handful of just-cooked green beans in the tasty glaze.
Horseradish is an invasive plant and can be found growing wild along almost any verge or roadside as an escapee from just about every allotment in Britain. The trouble isn’t that it is terribly quick spreading, just that once it gets hold it really doesn’t let go. Future problems can easily be avoided by planting it into a corner surrounded by lawn (this is equally effective when planting mint, as it is then kept in check by mowing), or by planting it into a deep, sturdy bucket. Horseradish needs no special treatment and is easy to harvest: dig it up, chop off however much root you need and replant the rest. Clean your root, but don’t peel it, and store it wrapped up in the salad crisper of your refrigerator.
SZECHUAN PEPPER
Szechuan pepper is a marvellous plant and a lovely surprise in a British garden. It tastes loosely similar to black pepper, but with an extra tang – a little peppery, and a little citrusy – that is more a feeling than a flavour. Szechuan pepper is an essential ingredient in Chinese five-spice powder, and it can be used as a seasoning all on its own, ground finely in a pepper mill or pestle and mortar. To make a wonderful, versatile, pepper-salt, take a ¼ cup of Szechuan peppercorns and a ½ cup of rock salt or Maldon sea salt. < pic 6 > Roast the peppercorns in a wok until they are smoking but not burning, then turn them out into a large pestle and mortar or a food processor and grind them with the salt until the mixture becomes a fine powder. Sift the powder to remove any persistent husks and store in an airtight container. You can use it alongside any dish that contains chillies to accentuate the flavour, but its true value is as a seasoning to bring dishes – rice, dips, soups and marinades – alive. It goes equally well with both vegetable and meat dishes, or try sprinkling it over popcorn or chips to give them an extra dimension. My next experiment is to try a little finely ground Szechuan pepper in my very lemony lemon meringue pie filling!
Despite its heat and lemony, spicy zest, Szechuan pepper is a natural in cool British gardens, with the species Zanthoxylum simulans and Z. schinifolium hardy down to –15°C or more when they are well established, though young plants will benefit from winter protection and a little mollycoddling. Mulch around the base and wrap the trunk with a tree guard to stop rabbits from nibbling the bark. Once the bush has reached a size that suits your plot, simply prune it to keep it to size. Although Zanthoxylum is self-pollinating, the presence of another bush nearby will increase the yield somewhat.
Towards the end of summer it is time to harvest the berries. Pick whole clusters of seed heads when they begin to open and show the seeds within, and dry them indoors on paper for a few days. These seed heads – they look like tiny beech nuts – are the part of the plant that you are after, not the seed, and once dried they should be stored in airtight containers and kept out of direct sunlight.
CHILLI PEPPERS
The British have a love affair with the great and glorious chilli, and often, it seems, the hotter it is, the better. But while it might be impressive to be able to consume (or at least try to consume) the world’s hottest peppers, it has to be said that it is far more satisfying to enjoy the flavour combinations of the rather milder, kinder cultivars, of which there are dozens to choose from.
The first thing to say about growing chillies is that they aren’t annuals. Chilli pepper plants will keep on going as long as you keep on looking after them, their yield growing each year until they begin to decline again after the fourth or fifth year. < pic 8 with caption: Early fruiting peppers. >
Like tomatoes, chillies appreciate an ever so slightly acid soil enriched with lots of well-rotted manure, which will help to keep the soil moist as well as serving as an excellent slow-release fertiliser. If you plan to keep your plants growing for several years, it is best to grow them in large pots rather than a greenhouse bed to avoid the need to disturb the roots when transplanting. Water the plants little and often and feed every couple of weeks with a good tomato food. Chillies do best at temperatures of around 15°C, and they positively dislike anything below 7°C. In the height of summer, remember to keep the greenhouse lights open so that temperatures don’t rise too sharply. Anything over 30°C will have a detrimental effect on yield.
Plants grown indoors in a greenhouse, polytunnel, conservatory, or on a windowsill, will need help with pollination if they are to set fruit properly, but this is an easy enough task: with a very soft paintbrush go from flower to flower tickling the bristles over the inside of the flowers, picking up pollen from one and spreading it to the others. Other things to watch out for when growing indoors is the need to raise the humidity around the leaves by damping down the path in the greenhouse or by setting smaller plants on trays of damp gravel.
Chillies can be harvested when they are at their hottest, in the green stage, or can be left to sweeten a little bit as they ripen to red or yellow – though it might be a bit of a challenge to detect any degree of sweetness in the burning overtones of the hottest fruit.
I store my chillies by pushing a needle and thread through the stalks of the fruit, and then I string them together and hang them up to dry in my conservatory – sometimes a tricky job if the stalks are very thick and dry. This way I can enjoy my own chillies all year round.
Hot ’n’ spicy facts
* We feel the heat of Szechuan pepper through hypersensitive touch receptors in our mouths, as well as through taste receptors.
* The hottest part of a chilli is not the seeds, as so many of us believe, but the white pith (known as the placenta) to which the seeds adhere.
* Don’t underestimate wasabi’s requirement for shade – it really doesn’t like the sun on its leaves!
* Like watercress, the best wasabi is grown in running water, but you don’t need a stream to do that; in the home garden the motion can simply be the movement generated by a pond pump.
* The heat of chillies differs to that of other plants on the Hot List in that it is phototrophic and will not dissolve in water, hence the futility of drinking water to cool a chilli burn. Capsaicin, the substance found in chilli oil, can be particularly strong and potent, and new methods of cultivation can increase the potential heat factor (measured on something called the Scoville scale) by up to 300 times!
Further Info
The Hot List of suppliers:
* Wasabi
www.thewasabicompany.co.uk
* Szechuan pepper
http://shop.otterfarm.co.uk/
* Horseradish
www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk (they supply roots, as well as seeds of many other plants)
* Chillies
www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk
www.worldofchillies.com
* Radishes
www.nickys-nursery.co.uk (they have a large selection of radish seeds, including rat-tails)
By Elizabeth McCorquodale; visit www.elizabethmccorquodale.com
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