Pepper (capsicum) seeds

[chrisgreaves]

My hoarding mania extends to extracting and drying the flat, circular seeds from red, green, orange and yellow peppers that go into summer salads and sandwiches.
I feel I ought to be able to make something with the seeds, but not sure what.
An extremely potent spicy sauce?
I'd be grateful to hear from anyone who has had experience in using these seeds.
I already thought of stringing them as a necklace and offering it to my ex- as a gift.

[johbot]

At the risk of stating the obvious ... could you plant them and have more capsicums some time in the future??

[Jezza]

How about getting a small bottle of virgin olive oil and throw a good few seeds into the bottle and leave for a few weeks. I have done similar with chopped chilli, garlic and/or ginger.

When ready you can drizzle it on fresh fish and grill it to get a nice "spicey" taste see <!post=Trout Fillets with Mediterranean Salad,584282>Trout Fillets with Mediterranean Salad<!/post> for ideas.

[chrisgreaves]

>could you plant them and have more capsicums some time in the future??
Yes. I did this years ago in Adelaide.
In Toronto, with a shorter growing season and weird soil (vermicompost, probably too rich), the most I get are small ornamental plants.

[chrisgreaves]

>small bottle of virgin olive oil and throw a good few seeds into the bottle
Good idea.
I'll try my first bottle just with the capsicum seeds.
I usually have jars or pureed garlic & pureed ginger on hand, too.

[chrisgreaves]

>How about getting a small bottle of virgin olive oil and throw a good few seeds into the bottle and leave for a few weeks.
Small? Good few? Few? What ever happened to Management Measures? Where are my often-loved quantifiers? (I know, I know, "Often?")

OK.

At Great Personal Expense(tm) I purchased a 500ml bottle of "Mastro" 100% Pure Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It has the Green/White/Red flag of Italy on the label, so it has to be good, right?
Why does it have to be Virgin Olive Oil? Would Safflower or other oils serve as well?

I have enough dried pepper seeds to cover a 13cm square container. By using the binary-chop technique, and counting 60 seeds in 1/32 of the pile, I estimate I have about 2,000 seeds.
I can commit all 2,000 to the entire bottle - seeds are easy to come by - but would this overpower the oil?

How many weeks? I can wait. I know that this may be asking you to shoot, so to speak, in the dark, but we may as well have an agreed time scale. Four weeks be enough? How long do you leave yours?

From the scientific side I suppose I could measure 500ml of my el-cheapo cooking oil which gets delivered via sturdy no-name containers to the bottom shelf of all local supermarkets, and use 1,000 seeds in each of the two 500ml batches.

The downside is that after four weeks I'd have to purchase TWO salmon steaks, and probably have to invite a friend over to eat my food. It would have to be a person who is happy to share two halves of two salmon steaks.

I salivatingly await your response.

[Jezza]

Ooohhh <img src=/S/yum.gif border=0 alt=yum width=15 height=15>

Those salmon steaks are shouting out a good helping of fresh noodles and a fresh green salad. I am even seeing a ice cold bottle of white wine, ssoooocold there is condensation on the outside.

I am even seeing those capsicum seeds being crushed and sprinkled over fresh strawberries.....amazing the two tastes do balance but I suggest you experiment on the amount of seeds as the strengths do vary

[jscher2000]

Unrelated comment: It is recommended to sterilize anything you plan to use for an oil infusion because otherwise undesired microbial growth may occur.

[chrisgreaves]

<P ID="edit" class=small>(Edited by chrisgreaves on 15-Jul-08 08:49. Added (later) comments on sterilization )</P>>Unrelated comment:
Thanks Jefferson.
But why "unrelated"? A caution about toxicity seems quite related to me ....
I'm not sure how to sterilize pepper seeds, except perhaps by roasting them, which would, I assume, drive off some of the aromatic essences we seek.
I wouldn't have a problem with pureed ginger (steam-sterilized in glass jars) or pureed garlic (frozen in margarine tubs).
My pepper seeds are indeed potential candidates for nasties, though. I have dried them on a saucer in a current of air, and then separated the seeds from the core material; plenty of opportunity for growth in the core material as it dries.

(later) I Googled for "sterilize pepper seeds" with little success; a paper on sterilizing peppers for preservation, myriad complaints about seeds being sterile (and not germinating). I'm thinking that my best bet might be to place the seeds in a sealed glass jar in bright, hot sunlight for three days. Or else to load the jar into my steam sterilize to keep some jars of nectarines company.

[jscher2000]

Regarding "how to," I need to dig out the book from which I remember this warning, Madeleine Kamman's The New Making of a Cook: The Art, Techniques, And Science Of Good Cooking. Or perhaps you have it at a local library. (Check the section on flavored oils.)

[DocWatson]

Take a look at this article Chris.

I turned it up on this Google search.

[chrisgreaves]

>I need to dig out the book from which I remember this warning
Thanks, Jefferson, but I took your advice and ordered it from the local Library.
(also please see my reply to Doc Watson)

[chrisgreaves]

>Take a look at this article Chris.
Thanks Doc. I did.
And am suitably chastened; but awfully glad I asked for quantification.
Who would have thought that life-holding pepper seeds could do-me-in?

>steep at room temperature any longer than about eight hours, and then keep it refrigerated for use within a maximum of 10 days
This answers one of my questions - how long to steep.
Seeds in oil at 9am, oil in 'fridge at 5pm. Use within a week, two weeks absolutely tops.
My gut reaction (poor choice of phrase, I know) is that a public warning from a newspaper is likely to err on the conservative side.
Still and all it's nice to know that I can prepare my oil on the weekend for a meal planned later that week.
Or that I can, at 9am, on hearing that Billy's dropping by for a salad, prepare a unique flavour for tonight's supper.

[chrisgreaves]

re <post:=721,868>post 721,868</post:>
Nearly 6 months later it arrived as <post:=750,099>post 750,099</post:>