Shishito chill pepper is a mild bright emerald green and usually about 7-10cm long. It has a distinctly interesting wrinkled form and the end tip area is supposed to resemble a lions head that gives it the Japanese colloquial name. It was developed in Japan and is often cooked in tempura and in other general culinary dishes that require a multipurpose chill pepper with a nice flavour rather than heat – ie. you can easily eat a whole Shishito pepper without bringing on a sweating response – but you will randomly get a hotter one. They are especially nice when toasted lightly on a grill as a whole pepper and thrown into a noodle dish or stir fry.
The plant is quite decorative and tends to be fairly small – although it produces a lot of fruit when it gets moving in late summer. I have found them to be fairly slow growing to start with – so it’s a good idea to get the seed started very early in spring. The other growing requirements are like most chill and they like lots of direct sun and a lightly mulched soil where they can get soil heat on and around the upper roots. And they like lots of manure and food like seaweed.