I absolutely love spicy food and will hopefully soon be picking up some hot peppers at the grocery store to cook with. (They have fresh jalapeños!) I thought I would ask a few questions here before jumping in.
Can you sauté fresh peppers or will the oils in the smoke irritate your eyes? Is there some kind of preparation you should do first? When is a pepper too hot to actually eat?
Essentially I saw this comic and wondered under what circumstances it was a bad idea to cook peppers.
If you have a gas stove you can roast them directly over the burner flame. I’ve done this and they came out very tasty.
mmm
If you have electric, you can roast them in a cast iron skillet. I wouldn’t breathe heavily directly over the peppers, but with the fan on there shouldn’t be any problem.
What do you want to do with them? You can chop and saute them directly, or you can roast and peel them, then chop, or eat them whole, or stuff them, or…
I’m with MMM. You can cook peppers in any way imaginable, but to me, roasting over an open flame seems to be the way to get the most flavor out of them. With jalapenos, they sweeten up (like when roasting bell peppers), and it mellows the heat. Changes it from being an in-your-face, up-front heat, to a more subtle, longer lasting warmth.
Roasting them doesn’t make what I call the Toxic Pepper Cloud.
You can get the Toxic Pepper Cloud from chopping them and sauteing in hot oil, but not always.
It’s a guarantee that you get Toxic Pepper Cloud by putting Asian Chile Paste in hot oil. Wear your goggles!
As far as preparation, dice 'em and put them in anything. Roast 'em until the skins are charred and peel and eat, though I usually do that with larger peppers (poblanos, anaheims, etc) and not so much jalepenos.
A good use for jalapenos is to cut them in half, remove some or all of the seeds and membranes (the more you leave in, the spicier they are), stuff with cream cheese, and wrap with bacon. Grill on a grill, or you could probably put them under the broiler. I seriously can’t make too many of these - they get eaten so fast that you have to be quick to get a few yourself if you have guests over!
Yes. The aroma can be a little irritating and can send you in a coughing fit if you’re not used to it and/or don’t have a hood over your stove.
Not really. You can sautee them directly. Or you can roast them first, but I only roast peppers for sauces or stews generally. Stir fries and the like I just toss them in raw.
I don’t understand the question. When it’s too spicy for your heat tolerance?
Absolutely yes you can saute fresh hot peppers! Burning a whole bunch of them, as alluded to in that comic, may create a noxious event, but pushing them around a pan with a little bit of oil will only fill your kitchen with that wonderful pungency that spicy food lovers could only consider as aromatherapy.
As already mentioned, charring peppers over a flame is indeed a great idea. You can even roll them around a hot electric coil to achieve a similar effect.
If you have a lot of peppers, you could saute them, pre-charred or not, with some chopped garlic, maybe some fresh cilantro, and keep a jar of hot and heavenly goodness in the fridge for use at will. I’ve never done that because my fridge and pantry are always fully stocked with ready-made heat, but how bad could homemade jalapeno relish possibly be?
As far peppers that are “too hot to eat,” that’s purely a matter of tolerance. For example, according to my cast-iron palate, peppers that hot do not even exist. Other folks have trouble with that extra dash of black pepper in their soup. Jalapenos do not even qualify as truly “hot” in my hierarchy. For a genuine tongue-lashing, I turn to habaneros (Scotch bonnets) or those potent little Thai peppers. I haven’t tried the infamous Bhut Jolokia yet, but I’m working on it. I won’t consider a pepper “hot” unless it soaks my hanky with tears of joy.
Jalapenos are on the lower end of the Scoville scale but are still pretty hot if you’re not a chilihead. As mentioned, I’d be mindful if cooking them cut up over high heat. I’ve had a few sneezes after hitting the cutting board with hot water during wash up, too. The only time I’ve had to run from the kitchen for air was when I was dry frying a bunch of dried mexican chilis for a BBQ rub.
I’ve got a few varieties of peppers in the garden this year: jalapenos, serranos, tabascos, poblanos, habaneros. Yesterday, I absentmindedly mistook a serrano for a jalapeno and took a nice bite off the end.
I won’t be doing that again.
Variation on the bacon wrapped cream cheese stuffed jalas (which are indeed awesome, esp smoked) is to wrap the cheese in prosciutto and stuff the ball into the pepper.
The leading cause of death of my disposable contact lenses is spicy eye after handling cut peppers. Typically, I will have prepared them hours earlier washed my hands several times since and forgotten all about the peppers…till bedtime.
QFT. I made a batch of Verde hot sauce the other day - jalapenos, garlic, a little onion, and one habanero for heat. Forgot what I just did and rubbed my nose. :smack:
Took the rest of the afternoon to wear off. But that sauce will be killer in a few weeks.
FYI, you can buy boxes of disposable latex gloves like these at most pharmacies. Very handy for cutting peppers. Also handy for cutting beets - not because of the heat, but because sometimes you don’t want pink hands all day.
Whenever I make fresh salsa, my wife has to leave the house. She can eat it, but the prep gets her choked up. (A mix of grinding, chopping, food processing, and some cooking)
I like to add a few peppers to the grill every time I cook out. I save the extras, sometimes freezing them for later salsas. I like the smokey and the burnt flavours.
A pepper is too hot to eat when you bite into it and don’t get any pleasure out of the pain. Or if the heat negatively affects the flavour. Different levels for different people.