New York, Nov 18 (IANS): Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver says he makes his kids eat chillies as a punishment for their mischiefs.

The 39-year-old, who has kids Poppy, 12, Daisy, 11, Petal, five, and Buddy, four, rubbed an apple with a Scotch bonnet pepper to teach his eldest girl a lesson after she was “disrespectful and rude” to him, reports dailymail.co.uk.

“I give them chillies for punishment. It is not very popular beating kids any more, it's not very fashionable and you are not allowed to do it and if you are a celebrity chef like me it does not look very good in the paper. So you need a few options,” he said on the BBC Good Food Show.

“Poppy was quite disrespectful and rude to me and she pushed her luck... Five minutes later she thought I had forgotten and I hadn't. She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and rubbed it with Scotch bonnet (pepper) and it worked a treat,” he added.

However, Oliver says that his wife gets furious with his unusual discipline technique.

“She ran up to mum and said, 'This is peppery'. I was in the corner laughing. Jools said to me, 'Don't you ever do that again',” the chef said.