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i'd probably invite my friends to a pepper eating contest

make some homemade hot sauce !!!!!

Being so hot, that's a lot of pepper power. That makes for enhancing a lot of curry, chili, pho, ramen, and kim chee/jiggae. As well as for folks who like to put pepper in their vodka and other drinks, like you are doing.

Congratulations on hanging in there and, as tacky as this sounds, seeing your labor of love come to fruition.

there's a whole article on the quest for the Bhut Jolokia pepper in this month's bon appetit. the woman mentions sometimes they will throw the pepper in whole/uncut to a pot of rice, and then take it out when the rice is done, just leaving the smoky flavor and only some of the heat. thought it was a pretty cool idea.

What would you do with 30 to 40 scorching hot peppers?"

Save the seeds and trade them for other pepper seeds. My Bhut Jolokias are ripening this week. Trading some of the seeds for Aleppo pepper seeds which are, as far as I can tell, impossible to buy in the USA (now and then you will find a seed in crushed Aleppo pepper but I don't know of anyone who has had sucess germinating them).

But that doesn't really answer your question does it? I'm considering a regional take on the pepper from Assam: Bhut Jolokia Cranberry Sauce, Bhut Jolokia CrabApple Jelly, Bhut Jolokia Rhubarb Chutney . . .

Trouble is I think one cup of any of it would be a lifetime supply .

I almost gave up on my plants grown from seeds purchased from New Mexico Chili Institute, so I contacted them and they told me to be patient as the peppers don't like to set fruit at over 93 degrees F temperature. Sure enough as it has cooled down I now have a boatload of beautiful 1-2" peppers popping out everywhere. I tried several location/container/sun combinations, but the most productive version is with three plants grown in an open-topped wooden 12-bottle wine case box in full sun with south exposure. The other partial/full sun solo plants in big clay pots are doing so-so. Everyone at work is licking their chops to get at these bad boys.

I f I were in your position and had the question of "What to do with 60 Bhut Jolokia", I would prefer to die instead of thinking "What to do?"
Man, no body ever contemplates giving away goodies like Bhut Jolokia.
Look at me, I consume about three pounds of them (and other peppers too) per year. Still I won't let any opportunity go out of hands to lay my hands on more.

Save it in your deep fridge for a rainy day. And as some one wrote, use it to trade seeds.

But the best thing you can and must do is to FALL IN LOVE with Bhut Jolokia as my self.
Read my blog to know about my affair with Naga Jolokia.

Naga Jolokia Addict

Eat the peppers raw, I did and lost my hearing for 20 minutes. But that minty flavor draws you back in. You can make a bhut jolokia and cayenne infused vodka. Yummy, but sure is spicy. I dry the peppers to survive the winter when peppers are producing. other ideas: salsa, potato topper instead of chives, hand warmers. I use them in my BBQ sauce to give it some flavor and heat. Cheese cake.

I admit I know next to nothing about peppers...and I've never even heard of this variety so I don't know how large they are...but could you 'pickle' them (for lack of a better term) like those bottles of "Pick-a-Peppa"? I think they just put them in a bottle,and pour the vinegar over them...then you use the vinegar to flavor your foods (keep it replenished over the tops of the peppers - and keep it refrigerated). You could cut them and take the seeds out (to grow, sell, trade) and keep the rest in the vinegar...makes one pepper go a long way!

we got our bhut jolokia at the Gainesville, FL hot pepper festival '09. we transplanted it into one of those giant dog-washing-tubs from Lowe's with a few bags of potting soil and manure. fertilized it every few weeks and eventually (when it the heat got below 95 degrees) it flowered like hell, and soon after i had between 60 and 70 peppers on the plant. the peppers are just now starting to ripen; a beautiful display of orange, red, and lime green. the plant is a monster. i am 6'4'' and i can look at the bhut jolokia face to face when im watering it. it's def. the king of our garden.

anyways, im sure you figured out what to do with your chiles since you started this post a few years ago, but my recommendation would be to just experiment the hell out of it. make hot sauce, cook with it, preserve some, dry some, make insecticide, pin one on the wall (a sacrifice to the chile gods), so on and so forth. here's a little recipe i "cooked" up over halloween weekend this year:

"tabasco burgers with caramelized ghost chile and onion"

- 1.5 pounds lean ground beef
- 6 oz package of goat cheese
- 10 fresh tabasco peppers (red and orange for sweetness)
- 2 green SEEDED bhut jolokias (unripened for the tang)
- one whole sweet onion
- four cloves of garlic

1. chop up the tabascos and throw into the goat cheese package. shake and mix it up. put in the fridge.

2. chop up your bhut jolokias, the onion, and garlic and put in a pan with some olive oil. let that cook at a medium heat. it will take a while

3. combine all of the goat cheese/tabasco with all of the beef. yes, all of it. make into two or three patties -- or one big one if you're a t-rex

4. grill it!

5. go check on your bhuts and onions. the onion should be completely browned when caramelized, and super sweet.

6. put the burger (cooked to your liking) and the caramelized bhut-onion-garlic mix on the bun of your choice.

7. eat it.

OPTIONAL: we also made this blue cheese spread that i put on the burger -- and it was super awesome.

- a 6 oz container of blue cheese

- jar of sour cream

- fresh minced garlic to taste

- a few oz of lime juice

--- mix all that stuff. that's it. spread it on the burger. eat it. the spread also work as a great chip dip.

side note: prepare to gain 34 pounds after eating.

side note 2: prepare to take a very painful dump at an interstate rest stop the next day.