Elephant's Ear pepper

[arnorrian]

I want to present you a sweet pepper variety that is not much known in the West, but is very important here in Serbia and some neighboring countries. The variety is called Elephant's Ear (Slonovo uvo in Serbian), and is one of the largest (by weight) and meatiest peppers there is.







There are several similar varieties from this region, all used for making ajvar (eye-vahr), a relish very popular in the Balkans. Every fall towns and villages here smell of roasting peppers for making ajvar.

[eyegrotom]

That looks good

[zendog]

Fabulous looking peppers! I really love growing big peppers and I'm growing 2 that I think might be similar this year, so I would love to have the recipe for that pepper spread.
This is one of the peppers: https://lawrenceproduce.com/collections ... ne-dolmasi

[arnorrian]

If that variety is meaty but not watery it should do. Baker Creek has a variety called ajvarski that is ok.

A rough recipe for ajvar is:

Roast 10 large red peppers, then peel the blackened skin, and remove seeds and stem. Bake in an oven one large eggplants until soft, peel the skin and remove the stem. Drain both well. Mince the peppers and eggplants in a hand mincer, or a food processor, with 3-5 cloves of garlic and chili peppers to taste. Place in a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir constantly on low to medium heat until the mixture starts to lose volume due to water boiling off. When in gets visibly more dense add half a cup of hot vegetable oil. Continue to stir until the mixture gets an oily sheen on the surface, and your spatula starts to make the bottom of the pot visible behind it. Add salt and a little bit of white vinegar to taste and mix well.

You can see the video bellow as a reference. It's not in English but you'll get the gist of it. In the video they don't use garlic or chili, and put the oil in the beginning, but that is a regional thing.

[ddsack]

I have grown Elephant's Ear, and they are the correct shape as shown, but yours are HUGE! Mine only get to medium size at best. Are you saving seed from those monster sized ones?

[AZGardener]

I'm growing it but mine aren't as large as those pictured. If anyone is looking for a seed source Bunny Hop at Heritage Seed Market has them.
Beautiful photos, thanks for sharing.

[arnorrian]

They are grown on a large scale by farmers is some parts of Serbia and sold everywhere in the fall. I haven't grown them, I grow only varieties of vegetable I cannot buy. But the seed is available, two seed producers in my town sell it. Peppers get to 20 cm (8 inches) long, and 150-250 g heavy.

[goodloe]

Hey [mention]arnorrian[/mention] ! That surely is an impressive pepper! What are its growth habits? A big plant...full sun...early maturity...heavy producer?? Please tell us more!

[arnorrian]

Here is a video from a Serbian agriculture show about the popularity of this variety in Bulgaria. Large quantities of seed are exported there to be grown in the plains of Thrace. The growers in the video say that the yield is up to 50 t/ha, that's 22 US tons per acre in the archaic measurement. You can see the plants and the inside of the pepper at the beginning of the video. This is open-field cultivation.



And here is a video about growing a hybrid variety of the same cultivar in a polytunnel. Yield is up to 200 t/ha.

[roper2008]

I received seeds to this in a Secret Santa Swap. Guess I'll grow them this year.

[MsCowpea]

Please tell how you grow them. Start to finish please.

[Nan6b]

Please tell how you grow them. Start to finish please.

Yes!!! What she said!

[arnorrian]

I haven't grown them. This type of pepper is available everywhere here in the fall. And fairly cheep to. This year it was 0.50-0.60 US dollars per kilo (0.25-0.30 US dollars per pound). My garden is very limited, and I grow only things I cannot buy.







Bonus: Oxheart tomato.

[imp]

You had me at the vido for ajvar, LOL, so ordered the elephant and several other varieties as well. The ajvar recipe looks good, but I also love to can up roasted red peppers for all sorts of things and these look meaty and bigger, hopefully very tasty too, and would take less than smaller peppers. Thanks for the tips and information!!

[arnorrian]

Yes, ajvar is the most important use here, but not the only one. This pepper is also roasted then frozen, and used for sauteing or fried with egg and flour, or pickled, whole or filleted.

[imp]

I am hoping they get of a good size here in north Texas, with the heat and longer summers. May try to do a tempura batter on them, many red peppers are quite good that way, too. I love roasted peppers in so may ways, LOL, and they are handy to have on hand as well as storing them for the future use by canning them or pickling them.

I even like them finely shredded, raw, in a coleslaw in the summer , peppers, carrots, cabbage, red onions and apples finely shredded make a lovely bright slaw. Topping with home grown toasted pecans when serving for an extra crunch is good too,or putting the slaw on a pork sandwich or taco.

[worth1]

Unbelievable.
I could eat a hundred of them.

[MsCowpea]

Phenomenal farmers market. You are so lucky. Understand why you don’t grow them when you can go there. I felt the same way when I went to farmers markets in Calif.— I could (almost) give up tomato growing they were that great. Even found dry farmed tomatoes in a grocery store in Berkeley, Ca. —best tomato I ever had.

[worth1]

Phenomenal farmers market. You are so lucky. Understand why you don’t grow them when you can go there. I felt the same way when I went to farmers markets in Calif.— I could give up tomato growing they were that great. Even found dry farmed tomatoes in a grocery store in Berkeley, Ca. —best tomato I ever had.

I used to dry farm all my peppers and tomatoes and they were very good, even yellow pear had flavor.
The soil was perfect for it, not so where I am now.

[MsCowpea]

Worth, they must have been delicious and even I believe yellow pear would be a different tomato dried farm.