Yup, another vote for that. It’s my go-to for chili pepper flakes.
I don’t taste much difference between the various ripe colors (red, yellow, orange, purple, etc), and I’d pick between them based on how they looked on the plate, but the ripe ones definitely taste different (and, in my opinion, better) than the unripe ones. Ripe ones are sweeter, and less bitter.
OP, here’s a handy dandy chart.
The hottest I’ve gone is Thai. Mrs. L picked some up at a Chinese market and whew, those are hot! I’ve also had habanero in very small amounts but I think the Thai were hotter. As peppers age they get hotter…Source
If you’re not used to hot and spicy, and you decide to try cooking with peppers, be careful not to touch your eyes. Or your nose. Etc. Also, if you eat something too hot the way to stop your mouth from burning is dairy. Have some yogurt, cheese, ice cream, or milk.
Especially the “etc.” I’m not going into detail on this one
Ahem, yes. Surprising, isn’t it? Another odd sensation: if it burned going in…? But that only happened to me after the first time I ate really hot stuff. My brother took me to a place where they had a burger that you didn’t dare eat. I dared. I think it had about two bottles of Tabasco in it. After a couple bites I wasn’t sure, but I soldiered on. And I finished it—no repercussions later.
The general rule for fruit is that the sugar content in ripe fruit is typically greater than in unripe fruit. That holds true for peppers where 100 grams of ripe red bell will give you 4.2 grams while the same amount of green bell gives you 2.4 grams. The exact amount varies depending on which resource you use and probably varies from between peppers based on factors like soil quality and fertilizers, but all have a similar gap in sugar content. Red bell peppers always contain more than the green ones.
If it doesn’t burn coming out, it wasn’t hot enough going in.
Red Pepper Flakes
Worst Breakfast Cereal Ever! My kid will never forgive me!
Gotta disagree with you. Green bell peppers have a very different flavor than the mellower red bells, and the yellow and orange bell peppers are even mellower. I would have no difficulty telling them apart blindfolded (although to me the yellow and orange taste the same). In fact one of my kids won’t eat the green, but she’ll eat the others.
Just wanted to chime in to say that I recently discovered chili garlic sauce at Walmart, and I love it. It has just the “right” amount of spiciness, and it’s even calorie-free.
That’s exactly the stuff. Not just at Walmart – at groceries all over. Made by the same folks who make sriracha sauce, but thicker and more flavourful, IMHO. I bought it once when the local grocery was out of sriracha, and it’s now my preferred hot chili sauce. Terrific with Singapore noodles.
I find the garlic a bit too much in that one and much prefer the Sambal Olek, which is basically the same thing with less garlic. A spoonful in a bowl of ramen noodles is awesome.
I like the garlic so it’s not a problem for me. I haven’t seen Sambal Olek in stores, although Asian stores would likely have it. The only Huy Fong stuff that is regularly found is the sriracha and the chili garlic.
They vary in heat, but the stuff at a pizza place is usually quite mild in my experience. I was at a Grimaldi’s yesterday and had to unscrew the pepper jar to put a reasonable amount of red pepper on the pizza, and it still had next to no discernible heat (at least to me.) I would have ordered a pizza with jalapeños or something on it, but we had to share with too many people that wouldn’t like it.
At home I use flakes from my bullet-shaped Thai chiles I grow. Those have a reasonable amount of heat, but are generally much hotter than what is expected from a recipe that calls for red pepper flakes. Something more in the 5-10k Scoville scale would be appropriate.
Agreed.
I agree. And the Aleppo peppers I excitedly bought from Spice House with high anticipation were indistinguishable from those in a freshly filled shaker at the local pizza joint. And for pizza, I prefer hot sauce, anyway. Sriracha, cayenne like Franks, Yucateco, etc.
I inherited red pepper flakes from my mom. She grew the peppers about forty years ago, and they are still hot!
I’ve never understood the appeal of hot peppers or hot sauces on most Italian dishes, and in general I like spicy food. But to me, Italian – as in pizza, lasagna, or any pasta with a tomato-based sauce – is a dish where the principal taste should be mellow, not spicy. I once tried an unusually expensive pasta sauce called Truff, made with truffles and hot seasonings. To my taste, both the truffles and the hotness detracted from what a pasta sauce should be. I quite disliked it, despite some rave reviews.
Now you have me wondering: of all the sauces like fermented chilli paste, ma’booj, etc. out there in the world, which ones are pretty spicy and also go well with pizza? 
I enjoy the vinegar tang from the cayenne sauces best of all. But those aren’t usually too spicy. But that’s OK, pizza isn’t something I want too spicy anyway. I suppose I’d tolerate Tabasco on pizza which I really only like on a few narrow things, mostly diner hash browns.