Say I wanted to make my own red pepper, like what you see in the shakers at pizza restaurants, what sort of pepper would I need to use?
I don’t know what they use at pizza restaurants, but I’ve had Thai chilis that I forgot about in the fridge. They were stored in a small paper bag. When I discovered them, they were dried out. I crushed them, and used them in my ramen.
Any kind of hot pepper at all will work. A few years ago, I had some little inch-long ones called “Super Chili” (which seem to be the only kind of pepper that can grow around here at all) that did fine.
A friend gave me a cayenne pepper plant and i got some nice little peppers out of it. I dried them out until they were really brittle and crushed them up. Careful with that. Made my eyes sting pretty good. Anyway…crushed them up and put them in a jar and they got moldy pretty quick. So my suggestion from my own experience is even though they feel super dry, maybe let them dry a bit more after crushing them.
Might be better to make piri-piri by letting them steep in vinegar.
I’ve used a variety of different red dried peppers. Different varieties have different flavors, so taste before you commit to a large batch.
I tend to try to remove as many seeds as I can, as I find they make the taste a little bitter when your teeth crunch through them (on pizza). I’d love some sort of screen that I could press the flakes through, but I’ve not figured that system out yet. I simply pop off the tops, pour out as many seeds as I can, then crush the pods that are left over.
WEAR GLOVES.
DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF YOUR WIFE’S “BITS” UNTIL FULLY DECONTAMINATED. :eek:
Learn from my experience. :smack: