When my faithful correspondent Sheila offered to send me seeds of a pepper variety called Hinkelhatz, I didn’t bother to ask what a Hinkelhatz pepper was. Every pepper variety, I figure, is worth trying at least once. As I laid the seeds on damp paper towels and later planted the sprouted seeds in pots in the greenhouse, I wondered what the fruit would be like, but I didn’t bother to research the question. And when I set the little plants out in the garden, again, I was too busy to look up a description.
It wasn’t until I idly picked and bit what I took to be an extra-small Shishito that I learned what I’d planted. I screamed, spit, and tore to the house, drooling all the way, to salve my burning tongue with a big spoonful of sour cream. Hinkelhatz peppers are hot!
I grow many varieties of peppers, but with our cool summer temperatures of the past few years the chiles have sadly developed little heat. And our summers are simply too short for most reliably fiery varieties, such as Habanero, to produce mature fruits. So the Hinkelhatz was a big surprise.
Because it has been grown for well over 150 years by a small group of Pennsylvania Mennonites, the Hinkelhatz has been added to the Slow Food Ark of Taste. The name of this pepper—“chicken heart” in Pennsylvania Dutch—aptly describes its size (1½ to 2 inches long) and shape (somewhat conical but blunt-ended and slightly furrowed). The Hinkelhatz starts out the same pale green color of the slighter longer—and never hot—Shishito. Some Pennsylvania Mennonites grow a yellow Hinkelhatz, but the commoner type, which I had, ripens orange-red. This description may remind you of the Habanero, but the Hinkelhatz has none of the Habanero’s characteristic aroma. Just the heat.
When the first frosts came in early October, very few of my Hinkelhatzes had ripened. I stored them in a box in our unheated guest bedroom, and I waited.
In mid-November, a few of the peppers had begun to rot; it was time to use the rest. Many were still fully green, so I put them in brine to ferment. About a third had ripened. These I would use in the way that Slow Food says the Pennsylvania Dutch do, as pepper vinegar.
The term pepper vinegar usually refers to vinegar that’s flavored by stuffing a jar full of hot peppers, pouring vinegar over, and letting it slowly draw out the peppers’ fire and flavor. Pepper vinegar of this sort is a common condiment in the West Indies and southeastern United States.
But Slow Food describes the Pennsylvania Dutch pepper vinegar as made from cooked and puréed peppers. So I created what might be better called a pepper sauce, in this way:
1 pound ripe hinkelhatz peppers, tops cut off
½ cups cider vinegar (5 percent)
1 teaspoon fine salt
Grind the ingredients together in a blender or food processor until the peppers appear minced (not puréed). In a saucepan, simmer the mixture for 10 minutes. Press it through the fine screen of a food mill. Funnel the sauce into a bottle, and store it in the refrigerator.
Makes about 1 pint
The sauce turned out a beautiful vermilion and, as expected, quite hot. It seems strange that Pennsylvania Dutch folks, with their sugar- and vinegar-rich but otherwise bland cookery, would favor hot sauce of any kind, much less this kind. According to Slow Food, the Mennonites who grow Hinkelhatz peppers sprinkle pepper vinegar on their sauerkraut. I wish someone could tell the story of how this pepper arrived in Pennsylvania, presumably—though probably not directly—from Mexico, and how it came to be treasured and passed on through generations in a community of Mennonite farmers.
I thank those farmers for passing the Hinkelhatz on to the rest of the world. Seeds for the red type are now available from many garden-seed companies.
I really enjoy reading your blog and have nominated you for the Inspiring Blogger Award. To accept you link back to me, tell 7 things about yourself and nominate 15 of your favourite blogs and let them know they have been nominated.
Jean, I’m very grateful, but I’m afraid I can’t accept. It would take me too much time to choose the 15 blogs! Linda
Interesting information about the Pennsylvania Mennonites. We used to live there and I am with you on it seeming strange that they had hot sauce. It sure it pretty!
Oh, I thought I told you that a Hinkelhatz is about half the Scovilles of a habanero? I made some “Hatz Sauce” last year using on of your tomato-based pepper/vinegar recipes (also lime juice), DH (who is Texan) said it wasn’t as hot as the commercial bottled pepper sauces so I’m still working on the recipe. They are very good substituted for habaneros in the Ball Habanero Gold recipe (I call my version Amish Gold – technically incorrect but I think it sounds better than Mennonite Gold LOL!).
My peppers didn’t do well this year in the drought – I didn’t get a single Hinkelhatz from plants started this year, only a few from ones I overwintered in 5-gal pots. How are the Purple Serrano I sent you? Maybe you really don’t want the Bih Jolokia (haven’t fruited, I have 3 in pots) or Douglah, those are a million Scovilles!
Sheila, probably you told me about the Hinkelhatz Scoville rating and I paid no attention.
The Purple Serrano produced well, and the fruits ripened well in storage, but they turned out only very mildly hot. (Everyone, the purple color is in the blossoms; the leaves are green, and the fruits are green and black, ripening red. To me they don’t look like serranos; they are the size of jalapeños and tapered to a point like Fresnos.) I used them in salsas and relishes.
Sure, I’d try the Bih Jolokia. I just wouldn’t take a big bite from one.
You have a talent for naming!
I have Hinkelhatz envy! I live in Tasmania Australia where we could be considered cool compared to the rest of Australia and would love to try these chilis but we have severe restrictions (quarantine) over what we can and can’t import into Tasmania and chilies and the rest of the solanaceae family are right out of the ballpark so we have to make do with a few varieties that our local seed companies can be bothered to grow…I think we need to import some Amish! 😉