Hot or Not: Cooking in Seattle with Peppers
September 21, 2011
•Le Cordon Bleu
•Seattle
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Hot or Not: Cooking in Seattle with Peppers
Cooking with peppers, either hot or mild, is more popular now than it ever has been, and it doesn’t take Le Cordon Bleu training to do it. There are still quite a few home cooks and food enthusiasts, however, who are intimidated by them. They worry that peppers are just too hot to cook with and that they are best left to the professionals.
While some concern is justified – even the mild flavor of sweet bell peppers can overwhelm a dish if used incorrectly – they needn’t be overly concerned. Anyone can cook with peppers, and nearly any dish can taste better with the right type of pepper added to it, even without the aforementioned Le Cordon Bleu training. Peppers can star as main ingredients or play a support role of flavor enhancer. In the right proportion, they will add both heat and flavor.
And while the weather in the Northwest isn’t perfect for growing peppers, you never have to worry about cooking in Seattle. With a little helpful advice and sense of adventure, adding peppers to your menu can be a delight.
Let’s take a look at how you can add peppers to your recipes without the worry of over doing it.
Starting Mild
The best way to learn how to cook with peppers is to start with the mild varieties, the mildest of which is the sweet bell pepper. Their Scoville rating, a temperature scale that measures units of heat for peppers, is zero, which means they have no heat at all. Some of the world hottest peppers, by contrast, may have Scoville ratings as high as 1,000,000 units.
Bell peppers make excellent additions to salads of all varieties. They add distinct flavors to green salads while adding a delicious crunch to macaroni and potato salads. Red bells are easily roasted in your oven to make flavorful ingredients for sandwiches, pasta salads, and Mediterranean dishes.
If you are of Eastern European descent, you may remember your grandmothers stuffed green peppers from your childhood. Large green bells are stuffed with a rice and meat mixture, placed in a tomato-based sauce and baked in the oven until tender.
Other mild varieties of pepper include pimentos and peperoncinis, both make excellent additions to just about any sandwich or slice of pizza.
Moving to Medium
As we move up the Scoville scale, medium peppers are excellent for adding a large amount of flavor with just a little kick of heat. Some of the most flavorful medium peppers include Anaheims, poblanos, rocatillas, and anchos. Further up the medium scale are jalapenos, chipotles, and guajillas.
Because of their medium heat, many of these peppers can still be served as main dishes. Chile rellenos are roasted poblanos stuffed with cheese and meat mixtures, battered, and then deep-fried. Chipotles, which are smoked jalapenos, add deep smoky and earthy flavors to Mexican dishes and sauces. Anchos are at their best when dried and ground to make chile powder.
Most commercially available hot sauces are of medium heat with most topping out at about 11,000 units. There are, of course, several daredevil hot sauces on store shelves that are many times hotter. They are definitely not for the faint of heart.
Now the Hot Stuff
Getting to the hot peppers, the Serrano pepper is about 23,000 Scoville units. For some chile pepper aficionados the Serrano isn’t all that hot, but, if used too liberally, it can definitely add too much heat. Some of the most popular hot peppers are the cayenne, Thai, pequin, Tabasco, habanero, and Scotch bonnet varieties.
These peppers are so hot that food preparers often have to wear latex gloves and protective eyewear to handle them. Obviously, a little bit of these peppers goes a long way. The popular habanero chili can be between 200,000 and 300,000 Scoville units. That’s hot! Most of these varieties are best handled by those with Le Cordon Blue or other culinary training. They can be dangerous.
While quite hot, many of these peppers are also very flavorful. The Scotch bonnet pepper is a key ingredient in Jamaican jerk rub, and Thai peppers give Pad Thai its familiar kick. Cayenne peppers are delicious when dried and cut for red pepper flakes, which are a spicy and flavorful addition to soups, pastas, and sauces.
Make Pepper a Part of Your Meals
Cooking in Seattle doesn’t have to be as bland as our famous rainy days. Adding peppers to some of your favorite recipes is an excellent way to ease into cooking with peppers. When you are ready to experiment with new recipes and varieties, there are many cookbooks at your local bookstore to get you started cooking with these flavor powerhouses. The Internet is also an excellent source, especially for harder to find varieties and those insanely hot hot sauces.
This article is presented by Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Seattle. Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Seattle offers culinary arts and pâtisserie and baking training programs in the Seattle, Washington area. To learn more about the class offerings, please visit Chefs.edu/Seattle for more information.
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