spice of life
Chilis give flavor to our favorite spicy foods
By Laura Snyder, Jayplay Writer
A flair for fire
Why would anyone subject themselves to this kind of torture? Maybe they're masochists, or more plausibly, they just don't like bland food, like Brandon McAnderson, Lawrence junior, who claims he puts Louisiana brand hot sauce on everything.
As you cautiously bite into a pepper, you first taste only the crisp, rubbery flavor. Then the burn hits you: It starts at your lips and travels to the back of your tongue. Tears splash down your cheeks and your nose drips like a garden hose. Every time you exhale, it feels like you're breathing pure fire.
The heat we taste in spicy foods usually comes from chili peppers. Although chilis originated in Bolivia, they spice up cuisines around the world, including Indian, Mexican, Caribbean, Peruvian, Southeast Asian and Szechwan, says Dave DeWitt, a chili pepper expert and author of over 30 books on chilis and spicy foods.
Another reason people like chili peppers is because of the perceived risk. "Eating chili peppers has been called culinary bungee-jumping," DeWitt says. In the last fifteen years, it's become more apparent that Americans like it hot. In 1991 salsa surpassed ketchup as the number 1 condiment in the U.S., said Danise Coon, program coordinator for the Chili Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University.
America's demand for spice has led to some bizarre concoctions. You will no longer find chilis only in salsa. DeWitt has seen vanilla ice cream dotted with fiery, berry-sized chiltepin peppers. Cowgirl Chocolates makes chocolate truffles with ground-up chili powder in them, and several brewing companies, including Cave Creek in Arizona, make chili beers with a pepper in the bottom of the bottle.
Anatomy of a chill pepper There are hundreds of varieties of
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chilis because the plants cross-pollinate so easily, DeWitt says. However, the ones you will most commonly find at the grocery store are jalapeños, cayennes, anchos, and poblanos.
The hottest part of the chili isn't the seeds, as many believe, but the membranes. They contain capsaicin, an alkaloid that makes the pepper hot. Different varieties of chilis have different levels of heat, even within the same kind of pepper. The environment that each pepper grows in determines the heat level for that particular pepper. "You never know how hot a particular pepper is going to be until you bite into it," says DeWitt.
You can get a general idea for how hot a certain type of pepper will be by its Scoville rating. The Scoville Scale is used to measure the degree of heat in different chills. The higher the number of Scoville Units, the hotter the pepper. The poblano, a milder pepper, prepared by stuffing with meat and cheese, has a heat level of 1,000 to 1,500 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). A jalapeño, considered to have only a medium heat level, can be 2,500 to 10,000 SHU. The hottest pepper in the world, the habanero, which can actually blister the skin, can be from 80,000 to 577,000 SHU.
Eat your chilis
Chilis have surprising health benefits as well. According to Coon, one fresh green chili pod has as much vitamin C as six oranges and a single teaspoon of dried red chili powder provides your daily requirements of vitamin A. Chilis are also high in antioxidants and have few calories. They have recently been linked to a mild increase in metabolism at the Oxford Polytechnic Institute in England.
Chillis can also be used for pain relief. They can be applied topically to provide relief from arthritis and sunburn. Before antibiotics were invented, people used chilis to cauterize open wounds, but DeWitt does not recommend this because the capsaicin is so powerful it may
quite the same. Or, you can grow chili peppers yourself. It's really not much harder than growing tomatoes, says DeWitt. They can be grown in the ground or in pots. Besides water, fertilizer, and sun, they require littles care Chili pepper seeds can be ordered online.
Use chilis to spice up anything, especially bland foods. But be conservative when adding them to a dish, DeWitt cautions. "Always add less than the instructions tell you, and then taste it as it's cooking. Once you get the dish too hot, it's hard to remove the heat," he says.
If you decide to experiment with some
pep
pers, have
milk or yogurt on hand.
Dairy helps soothe the burn, DeWitt says, and the thicker the dairy product, the better it works.
So be brave and sample some chilis. You don't have chomp down on a whole pepper, but try adding diced peppers to your favorite dishes for some kick. Start with a milder pepper like an ancho or serrano and work your way up. You'll never be satisfied with bland food again.
Green chill stew
- 1 ½ pounds lean pork, cut into 1 ½-inch cubes
- Vegetable oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 quart pork or chicken broth
- 6 to 8 green New Mexico chills, roasted,
peeled and cut into thin strips
- 2 small tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 large potato, peeled and diced
- 1 large potato, peeled and diced
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, Mexican preferred
- Salt to taste
In a heavy skillet, brown the pork over medium to medium-high heat, adding a little oil if needed. When the pork is browned, transfer it to a large stockpot. Add the onions and some more oil to the same skillet and until the onions turn a golden brown,
5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional minute. Transfer the mixture to the pot with the pork.
Add 2 cups of broth to the skillet, raise the heat, and deglaze the skillet, being sure to scrape all the bits and pieces from the sides and bottom. Pour the broth over the pork in the stockpot.
Add the remaining ingredients to the stockpot, bring it to just below boiling, reduce the heat, and simmer for 1 to $ 1 \frac{1}{2} $ hours, or until the meat is very tender and starts to fall apart.
Yield:4 servings
Heat Scale: Medium
Source: Dave DeWitt, http://www.fleery-foods.com