Fresh hot peppers
Hi,
Where can I buy fresh hot peppers (habanero, scotch bonnet, congo...) in montreal?
I've been searching for some time with no luck.
Thx
habman
Jan 29, 2008 08:47PM
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You can sometimes find them in grocery stores. I know I've seen some in styrofoam at the Provigo on Mont-Royal. Fruit stores will usually have a decent selection. Latino, Asian, South Asian, Caribbean and African stores stock a decent selection, too.
In what neighbourhood are you?
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I live on the east side of Montreal but I'm willing to go anywhere to get them :)
In summer I grow my own but now i've run out of hot sauce and fresh pods.
I'm looking to buy 2-3 kg to make sauce and eat fresh.
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Well, if you need that kind of quantity, why don't you just call Dauphinais in Marché Maisonneuve (if you live around there) and get them special ordered. Otherwise hit up Sami Fruit behind the Kim Phat on Jarry or the big place in Marché Central (I forget the name).
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Howdy!
Nino's and others at the JTM
4 Freres on Saint Laurent & Pine
The grocery store on the Southwest corner of Saint Denis & Jean Talon
Last time I looked one of the places at the Atwater market also sold them (although that was two years ago...)
Then if you just wanted to wander in and out of grocery stores, I'd suggest Victoria around Cote Saint Catherine, Chinatown, and Jean Talon around Acadie.
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Cool that's a great start.
The best hot peppers are from trinidad and tobago.
I know we have these quality peppers in Montreal because I read a paper from Trinidad saying Montreal is one of it's big customer.
Would you know where trinidad and tobago community live in mtl?
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Yeah, you want to be looking at the recently expanded Rocky Montana fruit store on Sherbooke W at Harvard. They now have a good selection of peppers from the islands. You can also sometimes get lucky at the Super C on St. Jacques, as there is a large West Indies contingent in the NDG area.
I haven't been into Marche Victoria on Victoria for a few months, but they also usually have a good selection, though freshness is sometimes an issue.
March Hawai in Ville St. Laurent has more than just Thai chilies, so it's also worth a look.
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I'm a student who lives in the McGill ghetto (near Sherbrooke and Parc). I really only know my area (though I've got no problems with following clear instructions, like metro stops) and am also looking to get my hands on hot peppers. Can anyone suggest anything within metro or (preferably) walking distance? Far is fine, long walks are nice in May! Thanks!
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probably in the couple of "fruiteries" near the Metro (supermarket) at "Place Du Parc"
or take a walk to chinatown.
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I had a funny experience with some peppers I bought from Marche Hawaii (BTW Bomobob, I am definitely warming up to Marche Hawaii! Thanks for your encouragement to continue to check it out. You are so right, it is a great Asian supermarket!). I bought what I thought were scotch bonnets to make a lovely dish recommended by Carswell, Yassa chicken. I added 3 halved peppers to my marinade, shaking in my shoes at the possibility of blowing my brains to Mars. When we cooked the dish, my non-chili head hubbie was able to dig into the dish without issue. Then I tried the dish. Very mild spice, yet it had the floral qualities and flavour of a scotch bonnet. Just minimal heat. I was able to eat the half peppers with impunity. Now I am pretty tolerant of spice, but this was unprecedented. Normally I start sweating buckets when I eat these babies.
Did I buy a non-Scotch Bonnet pepper? Or is this a dumbed down version, genetically modified for less spice? Has anyone else had this experience?
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Do you have any left and if so can you post a picture? Maybe they're something other than scotch bonnets.
p.s glad you're warming up to Hawaii - I love that place! Totally addicted to the fresh noodles + frozen dumplings + great greens.
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Kpzoo. unfortunately they are all gone now. They really look like scotch bonnets, and the flavour is very reminiscent of scotch bonnets, minus a whole lot of spice. My hubbie really liked them, because he likes the taste of scotch bonnets, but usually can't handle the heat at all.
Yes, I'm beginning to think my first visit might have been on day before they got a fresh stock of vegetables. The selection has been great on my more recent visits. I'll have to try those fresh noodles!
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For fresh noodles, I've been using the fresh rice rolls to make a recipe from Kylie Kwong's My China, and the fresh egg noodles to make a homemade Cantonese chow mein that's beginning to rival Rest. Hong Kong's, if I do say so myself. ;-) And I've also started getting the thin won ton-soup noodles and putting them in my homemade chicken broth with frozen chicken won tons from Hawaii. Yum.
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Are these noodles in the refrigerated section?
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Yes, the fresh noodles are in the case at the left rear of the store, just around the corner from the fresh-fish counter.
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Thanks :)
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That's funny, I just made Jamaican curried pork this week and was thinking the same thing. 2 scotch bonnets were mild, so I doubled it... a bit spicier, but 4 of those babies for 2-3 pounds of meat should be sufficient!
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I do feel that the Quebec spicy food market isn't quite as developed as our friends down south in Texas or Mexico. People seem much more sensitive to hot spice, and less tolerant. What do people think? Am I making a sweeping but incorrect generalization?
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I propose a habanero poutine to remedy that.
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I'd buy that! Do you think we can convince Martin Picard?
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No, I think it's a wide but valid brush you're using. Most of my workmates are Quebec Francophones, and I've seen more than my fair share of watery eyes, sweaty brows, and lunges for the water glass if anything more than salt and pepper is used to spice food, whereas the Anglo West-Island gorillas like to boast about the new hot suicide sauce they picked up at Joey's BBQs on Gouin.
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moh was kind enough to share her bumper crop of chiles with me. Going by appearance, these were classic scotch bonnets. Chicken yassa being one of my favourite dishes, I'd been thinking about it ever since sending the recipe moh's way and so decided to whip up a batch myself. My tolerance for heat is quite high and normally I find that two finely chopped scotch bonnets to four chicken legs gives a result that's hot enough to make me glad there's millet, rice or another bland grain on the plate and cold beer in the glass. This time I tasted a tiny piece of pepper as I was chopping and got barely a tingle, so I threw a third chopped chile into the stew. I would have had to throw in at least six more to get the normal level of burn. As moh notes, the chiles' typical flavour was there, just no scoville units.
I suspect they were dumbed down by plant breeders and chile growers in deference to local palates. I notice much the same thing with jalapeños. Ones I've bought in western states like California can be hot enough to make your eyes water. Ones I buy here are wimpy and, unlike the scotch bonnets, not very flavourful. Example: a recipe for sweet potato soup with lime cream from California-based John Ash calls for two or three jalapeños; I have to use six or seven to get even a hint of jalapeño flavour and even then normally chile-hating kids say they love it.
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Now that you mention it, when my mum was here, she made some of her wonderful soy sauce braised jalapeno peppers stuffed with ground beef. We bought a whack of jalapenos from PA. Normally these are very spicy, eaten in small amounts with a lot of rice. These peppers were mild enough to eat whole without rice (well, I did, hubbie still needed the rice).
Maybe I just have bad luck buying spicy peppers...
No wait, I bought some Thai chiles from Marche Hawaii, and they were pretty darn spicy. One out of three ain't bad.
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I've noticed the same with the jalapenos from PA - worse yet, the jalapeno plant I bought last year for my garden had the mildest, most flavourless jalapenos I'd ever tasted. This year, I will look for a non-dumbed down jalapeno plant, if such a thing exists in Montreal. Does anyone know if Birri sells small plants at the beginning of the season? I haven't made it there since they opened up this spring, but hope to do so next week.
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Birri is selling a bunch of small plants, the usual selection of herbs, but also tomatoes and other edible plants. The whole market is up and running with lettuces, tomatoes, and other vegetable seedlings. Many of these seedlings look like they will be edible soon, especially the herbs and lettuce plants. But I don't recall seeing jalapeno yet.
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I've been growing a selection of hotties from seed over the past couple of months, and they'll be going in the ground in the next couple of weeks. I've always had very good luck growing them at home, either starting with small plants or seeds. You really have to know the breed you're interested in because the people selling the plants often have a very different concept of what "hot" means.
Kim Phat out on Jarry E. has the freshest and hottest Thai chillies I've found anywhere.
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Not sure what you bought, but I remember an episode of "Sucker For Punishment" on the Food Network or Bravo or something. Anyway, the host was prepping to enter a chili eating contest and visiting various chili farms in Texas.
One guy showed him a habanero look-alike with no heat.
He put a few in his pocket and when in line for the contest, non-chalantly pulled them out and ate them. He was trying to psyche out the other contestants.
So there ARE habenero look alikes without heat (if it was on TV, it must be true...)
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I remember that episode. The show is Glutton for Punishment.
The problem is how to tell of you are getting the look alike or not...
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I find the heat can vary sometimes on all sorts of chiles - but I've definitely found this to be the case with jalapenos and scotch bonnets. Some I get pack a real wallop, others, meh. If you get crappy ones at a store you shop at regularly, complain. Maybe the supplier is the problem.
Anyway, Bala's on Park Ave. (the place in Mile End that got firebombed several times, formerly Harji's) usually has scotch bonnets. Sometimes they've been sitting around a bit long. But the batch there now is fairly fresh and I haven't found previous batches lacking in scovilles.
Bala's is usually good for a couple other types of chiles as well, and, frequently, though not always, fresh curry leaves.
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