Hot and Spicy Tips:

Heat and Fresh Peppers
Roasting Peppers
About Wasabi
Chile vs. Chili
Seasoning and Flavoring
Common Seasonings and Flavorings

Today lets talk about heat from peppers. Fresh, frozen or dried they are the most popular ingredient used in spicy dishes. For over 6000 years peppers (Capsicum genus) have been used as a cooking ingredient and there are over 400 different varieties being grown around the world today.

Early this century a pharmacologist named Wilber Scoville came up with a method to measure the capsaicin in a pepper. That's stuff in peppers that run through the veins and seeds that dictate how darn hot that pepper will be. You can rarely tell how hot a pepper is by looking at it. Don't you just love those cute little orange ones called Habañeros, don't be fooled, they'll set you mouth on fire.

So this Scoville guy set up a scale by which all peppers are graded as to their heat level. It starts at zero and continues to climb as new scorching hot peppers are produced. A mild bell pepper might have a Scoville Unit rating of around 1000 (parts per million of capsaicin), while a jalapeño will come in around 4000 units. Wow, you think those jalapenos are hot? A habañero can contain up to and over 300,000 Scoville Units. Downright dangerous!

Chiles are rich in Vitamin A and C. A two-ounce Chile has more than twice your daily requirement of Vitamin A. When you are buying peppers look for a firm, solid flesh that is unblemished and has an even coloring. They have a good shelf life and should be kept in a cooler in a plastic bag until ready to use. If you are handling really hot peppers use a pair of those surgical gloves that are available in the pharmacy area of your supermarket. Do not touch your eyes or certain sensitive spots on your body after handling hot peppers. It's a lesson you can learn from someone with a bad experience or two. ME!

Dried whole chilies should be clean, shiny, and not broken. Store like you do all your spices, in a cool dark area in a sealed container or bag. To reconstitute them cover them with hot water in a bowl until they are soft and you can work with them.

The majority of the heat in a pepper is in the veins and seeds. To tone down a dish and get the flavor of the pepper without as much heat, remove the veins and seeds before you incorporate them into your dish.

One more tip before we go on. If you are eating hot foods heated by peppers, and you face bursts into flames and you need to put out the fire, water is not the answer. It only makes it worse, drink milk or a piece of bread or toast with butter. Or run to your freezer and gobble up some ice cream. Now that's a good excuse to eat ice cream!

Roasting peppers is a very common practice for adding additional flavor to a dish. I grow Anaheim peppers every year and grill them with my steaks. I also make a wonderful grilled salsa that is easy and great on steaks and grilled meaty fish filets.

Roast your peppers on a grill, over a gas flame or in an oven until the skin is black and blistered. Immediately place them into a plastic bag and let them steam. This facilitates the easy removal of the skins. Remove the skins and you are ready to make all kinds of wonderful dishes. If I'm in a hurry but still want to make a fun fish sauce, I'll take a package of Knorr Newburg Sauce and prepare it according to the instructions on the package. Meanwhile I'll roast a red bell pepper and one jalapeño. Remove the veins and seeds once they are peeled. Then I put the sauce and the peeled peppers into a blender and presto, instant Red Bell Pepper Sauce. It really is great, use less jalapeño if you are not into too spicy!

Is there a difference? Oh Yes! Seasoning is what you do to enhance the real flavor of the food you are eating. When you put salt on a steak or grilled asparagus you are seasoning the food without masking it's basic flavor.

Flavoring a food means you are changing its basic true flavor. When you coat a piece of fish with Cajun spices and blacken it a searing hot pan, you have definitely flavored the fish! Same with ground beef for Tacos or Chili. Do you see the difference? It's pretty simple, but it can be a little confusing too. While salt may be your basic and most common Seasoning, what happens when it is used in beef jerky or popcorn? Oops, now it a Flavoring! So like I said earlier, just use common sense.

Basic Rules: Just remember that for the most part your main ingredient, the meat, starch or vegetable are your primary flavor. Your goal is to cook them properly and enhance their original flavors to make them more pleasing to your palate. Dumping in a whole can of your favorite spice can't save poorly prepared food!

The best time to season your food is towards the end of the cooking time. That is the time when you decide if you have acquired the flavor you were looking for. This is very true especially with liquids. Soups and Sauces that have too much seasoning (like salt) in the beginning of a recipe will reduce during the cooking period and have too strong of a flavor. Fine-tune it at the end.

Flavoring foods can take place throughout the cooking time, as most flavorings require heat to bring out the flavor. Some flavorings like fresh herbs, flamed wines, prepared mustards, cracked peppercorns can be added at the end as they will add instant flavor. Remember whole spices take longer to add flavor than ground spices.

On the other side of the coin, some flavors can be lost or diminished during cooking through evaporation. That's why your house smells so good when you are making your favorite spaghetti sauce. Don't overcook!

Any food can be used as a flavoring. Sauces are used as a flavoring and they are compiled of many ingredients sometimes. Vegetables, meats, fish and starches can be used as well. My point is that flavorings don't all come from a jar or can. Bacon, ham, beef jerky, smoked fish or chicken, gingerroot, potatoes are all examples of food flavorings.

Food specific flavorings set aside, let's just identify the most common flavoring ingredients that we use most in our cooking. First and the most commonly used ingredient is salt. It's on every table and beside most stoves. Caution should always be taken using salt, once it's in there you can't get it out. Being in the restaurant business for almost three decades has taught me one thing at least! Have you ever noticed how many people pick up the salt shaker and just start shaking away without first tasting the food? Lots of people do this, so it is a good "Rule of Thumb" to under-salt your food just a bit to accommodate these folks.

Pepper is probably the next most common flavoring ingredient. Black and White and Green Pepper are actually berries that are processed differently and are called peppercorns. They all grow on the same vine and are harvested at different times. The green ones are harvested first and frozen, freeze-dried or pickled in a brine. Black pepper is also picked unripe later in the growing stage. They are then dried and considered to be the world's most popular spice. The last to be harvested is the white pepper. They turn a light shade of pink and are harvested. The outer shell or husk is removed and the light or white peppercorn is revealed. Personally I think that white pepper is spicier than the black but many people would disagree with me. White pepper is used in white or cream sauces and things like mashed potatoes. Heavily used in Chinese cuisine as well.

Red pepper or cayenne actually comes from peppers or chilies. It's in the same family as bell peppers and paprika. It's dried and ground and if used in little doses, it can add a nice little zing to your food. Our friends "South of the Border" use these more liberally than most of us.

Lemons compliment many foods, not just fish. A little squeeze into a chicken salad will give a light fresh flavor that will surprise you. Many chefs will add a little to a sauce or soup at the end to bring it up a notch, and you'd never know it's there, but your taste buds do! Adding a little lemon juice to your apples, peaches or blueberries before making a pie makes a big difference. Using the rinds (the colored outside surface) of lemons, limes and oranges is a common practice for sauces, meats, poultry, game dishes and desserts.

Fresh herbs like basil, rosemary, chives, parsley, dill, mint and cilantro are now available at most supermarkets if you don't have room to grow them outside. You can successfully grow most of these inside in your window year round you know! The flavor of fresh herbs beats dried hands down and should be used towards the end of your preparation for a full flavor.

Carrots and celery are used in all kitchens and then there is the wonderful onion family. Garlic, shallots and all the onions, red, yellow, white, Vidalia, Hawaiian and more make up this family. Vidalia Onions will be ready soon. They are so sweet some people admit to eating them like an apple!

Mustard is a very common flavoring as well. It's a blend of ground mustard, vinegar and other spices. There are too many varieties to mention here, but use them in marinades, dressings, sauces, on meats and more.

Beer, wine and brandy are all used to add great flavor to foods. Cognacs and brandy's should be flamed to remove their alcoholic content. Wines like to be reduced to intensify their flavor. When I make Chinese style mustard for home made egg rolls, I use just enough beer to make a paste with straight dry mustard, then I let it sit for 1 hour to develop it's intense "Sinus Draining" flavor.