Ancho Going to Use Lots of Peppers?

So while under isolation orders up here in BC, we (myself and a group of people including Jenise, our only American respondent) have been doing some cooking - things we've been wanting to try, anything that catches out interest - pretty much anything at all, and posting to each other what we have been making and what wines we have been having with it .

Jenise (of course) is one of the most fervent and accomplished cooks, and I enjoy the combinations she comes up with, complete with recipes sometimes. Sometimes we just go for simple and tasty (I am doing sole in a brown butter caper sauce and asparagus with a BC Rhone blend wine of roussanne, viognier and rmarsanne tonight).

It means that we are really using the contents of our pantries as well as sourcing ingredients not normally present there. For instance I am doing lamb kofte tomorrow night and lamb Vindaloo curry.

We keep a lot of chili peppers, though not as many kinds probably, as South West US cooks, but I had to search around for Arbol chiles, a Mexican native, fairly hot. Turned out there is a local business that imports in bulk from Mexico and packages here so I was in luck. By the end of the week I shall become a 'seasoned' veteran!

Any comments on arbols from pepper heads out there?

BTW, I am contemplating opening a mature Aussie shiraz with the vindaloo on the weekend! Think that will work together? And will play the Red Hot Chile Peppers for dinner music.

If you're speaking of chile de arbol, a long, thin dried chile pepper about 2-3 inches long and somewhat hot, they're rather common here. I use them whenever I'm cooking Szechuan dishes, blackening them in hot oil as the first step. I sometimes throw in one or two in soups, stews. etc., just to perk up the flavor. I tend to think of them as red pepper flakes that haven't been crushed.

Save some seeds and plant them.

I tend to think of them as red pepper flakes that haven't been crushed.

Save some seeds and plant them.

Thanks.

BTW, I am contemplating opening a mature Aussie shiraz with the vindaloo on the weekend! Think that will work together? .

No problem. All depends on one's tolerance/enjoyment of chillies. The fact you're thinking of Shiraz suggests you do enjoy chillies, so if you also enjoy Shiraz there's no problem.

Well Peter, I do like Syrah but have fallen out of love with the over ripe sweet style often produced by the Aussies, so have a backlog to drink up. That style of wine seems to slightly mute the bite of spicy foods as well, which can be a good thing as far as my sous chef is concerned. Thinking about a 94 or 95 Henschke Keyneton or a 98 Fox Creek JSM, but haven't ruled out an Argentine Malbec or blend.

If you're speaking of chile de arbol, a long, thin dried chile pepper about 2-3 inches long and somewhat hot, they're rather common here. I use them whenever I'm cooking Szechuan dishes, blackening them in hot oil as the first step.

I used to blacken the chiles, too, when making dishes such as kung pao chicken. Then i got one of Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks. She cautions to use lower heat when you add the dried red chiles to the wok specifically to avoid burning the chiles. You're ready for the next ingredient when the chiles are still red but have turned a darker color. This extracts the flavor and aroma from the chiles (the whole point of the exercise) while avoiding a burned flavor.

Chiles de arbol are readily available in supermarkets around here. I used to buy tien tsin chiles from Penzey's, but now I buy genuine Sichuan chiles from the Mala Market. The key issue is freshness. Most of the dried chiles sold in Asian markets and supermarkets are, in my experience, stale. The fresh chiles from the Mala Market were a real eye-opener, the first time I made kung pao chicken with them.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Ah, chile talk. It occurs to me there's a bad joke in there about your choosing an Australian wine instead of Chilean, Bill. (I'll bet you don't even own any. I have a few Carmeneres, but that's it.)

My pantry's probably never been lower on chiles than it is right now. Used up my last whole guajillos two weeks ago, now have just New Mexico reds for salsas, and for seasoning I have ground Ancho, dried chiopotle and whole little chiles that were either Tsien/Ts or Arbols. I no longer remember. A shame because I typically move everything to jars and stick the labels in the jars so that I always know what they are. Best chiles I've ever had for adding a complex, fruity heat perfect for my tastes to a pot of something simmering were ones I bought in China and brought home. I should look for replacements at the Mala market.

I add chiles to think that aren't thought of as chile-food. For instance, there's a pot of bolognese sauce simmering away on the stove right now, and I've already added a pinch of red pepper. Won't be an obvious flavor at the end of cooking later today, but they bring a little background that I like. Cayenne, of course, is always on hand for the same purpose.

Speaking of chiles: calabrian chiles. I have never had one in my life that I know of. I finally found some in jars about two weeks ago and bought one, but haven't opened the jar yet. Saw a fresh one on Ming's show the other day, they talked about them having a fermented, almost salted flavor--raw! Will open that jar soon but in the meantime can't wait till I get to buy fresh!

I happen to have several Chilean wines including older premium Montes, Errazuriz Chadwick, an elderly Don Maximiano (thanks for the reminder - that one needs to be drunk up!) and several different wines from Cos des Fous. But you are right, less than 3 cases total.

If you can lay your hands on any, also worth trying are Hungarian peppers. Paprika comes both sweet and hot but they have a zillion fresh kinds. I tasted a few when I was in the Budapest Food Hall, some years ago.

We rarely see Hungarian peppers here except for mild ones in jars and seeds to grow your own hot ones, although I do have both sweet and hot paprikas, in both regular and smoked versions. I'll keep my eyes open though.

Was tempted by the packages of Carolina Reaper seeds on Amazon, but was too smart to go there!

Interestingly, New Mexico is a major worldwide supplier of paprika. And you can find NM paprika and smoked paprika online.

Looks like what we have here are ancho, California (Anaheim)- 2 bags of those for some reason, chipotle morita, pasilla, arbols, birdseye.

I have a friend who's a deep-end chile nut. He dabbles with Carolina reapers and their ilk. He brought some dried, powdered Carolina reapers once for me to try. Just a few grains were enough to set my mouth on fire, and the tips of my fingers were slightly burning for a few days, despite my having thoroughly washed my hands immediately after sampling the chile powder.

The hottest chiles that I've worked with are ghost chiles. Our local Indian grocery had a bunch of fresh ones for sale. I bought 20 of them. Ten I gave to the aforementioned friend. The other ten replaced habaneros in a batch of Inner Beauty hot sauce I was making. The resulting "Inner Beauty Ghost Sauce" is a lot more incendiary than its habanero-based cousin. It's more or less in the Dave's Insanity category. The Indian grocery didn't restock the fresh ghost chiles. I haven't seen them for sale anywhere since.

-Paul W.

The Arbols showed up today, so the vindaloo is on for the weekend. Will have to go a tad easy on the number of peppers used so the distaff staff doesn't rebel. Will also look at applying them to other dishes.

Just a few grains were enough to set my mouth on fire, and the tips of my fingers were slightly burning for a few days, despite my having thoroughly washed my hands immediately after sampling the chile powder.-Paul W.

Hope another appendage didn't burn. It's because capsaicin is not water soluble. Been there.

Sounds like testosterone poisoning to me.

Sounds like testosterone poisoning to me.

Speaking of that, the term you used nicely sums up the behaviour of the idiots that eat whole hot chilis to prove...something or other.

Here is a video on the world's hottest peppers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLKEM2TRDwQ

Guess I'm just a moron. I eat whole jalapenos, serranos, and cayenne chiles (not the mega-hot chiles), although I've tasted way hotter salsas (a ghost pepper salsa made here in Albuquerque did make me suffer for a while). And it's amusing to watch tourists here in agony eating something that tastes mild or nothing to us.

Luckily, capsaicin only feels like it's damaging you. FWIW, it has no effect on birds.

I once ate a whole, freshly picked habanero. Recovery time was about 20 minutes. The next two days were an instructive lesson on the shape of the human digestive tract, and where food goes after you eat it.

-Paul W.

Larry, the idiots are the ones that had nowhere near your tolerance for the heat, knew it and did what they did anyway.

I have had friends that were from countries (China, Thailand) where regional cuisines carried far more heat than I was comfortable with, but they were pretty happy with it. Guess it is a matter of acclimatization - do it gradually and often enough and you develop a tolerance?

I once ate a whole, freshly picked habanero. Recovery time was about 20 minutes. The next two days were an instructive lesson on the shape of the human digestive tract, and where food goes after you eat it.

-Paul W.

New Mexicans know enough to eat ice cream afterward. Then the next day, you yell, "Come on, ice cream!"

Larry, the idiots are the ones that had nowhere near your tolerance for the heat, knew it and did what they did anyway.

I have had friends that were from countries (China, Thailand) where regional cuisines carried far more heat than I was comfortable with, but they were pretty happy with it. Guess it is a matter of acclimatization - do it gradually and often enough and you develop a tolerance?

No offense taken. We hear similar statements here all the time from people who haven't yet discovered the joy of heat. Yes, people who pop in a whole ghost pepper et al. can be idiots. I only go part way, hence moron < idiot.

It is true that you build up a tolerance for hot peppers and, yes, you can still taste the food. I find certain foods bland without the addition of chiles, but I've met my match on some superhot Thai and Sri Lankan food.

FWIW, chiles are higher in Vit C than oranges and are useful in deterring intestinal parasites (although my tapeworm has developed a fondness for chiles). And ancient cultures who lived in this region ate a diet with beans and corn (complete protein) and chiles (anti-scurvy supplement because humans can't produce Vit C).