I’m growing this new chile variety, ‘Lumbre’ (another world for fire in Spanish), which had been touted as twice as hot as the normal New Mexican chile like ‘NuMex 6-4 Heritage’. It was developed by Jimmy Lytle in Salem, New Mexico–his father developed the ‘Big Jim’ variety. The plants grow quickly, are very prolific, and do well in pots like the one above. I took three pods off of this potted plant, and here’s what happened.
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- Fresh pods, 2 6″ long and one 5″
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- Roasting them on my gas grill until the skin blisters.
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- Then they were steamed by placing them in a zip bag with a wet paper towel in the bottom. This loosens the skin.
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- Stems, seeds, and skin is removed, and the pods were chopped up together. I added a little salt, stirred it up, and took a taste…
The flavor was excellent and the chile was hot, but not as hot as advertised and about as hot as the ‘Sandia’ variety. But these are early pods and quite possibly a little immature. I’ll do another tasting when the chiles turn red, and then I’ll dry them and do a final tasting and evaluation. But so far, so good, and that bowl of chile you see went into this morning’s brunch, Mexican Nested Egg Skillet–the recipe for that will be in my next post.
