[CH] Rocotos
Fiery Foods Co. Ltd (ian@fieryfoods.co.nz)
Sun, 3 Feb 2002 12:57:31 +1300
Hi y'all
I have had the recent experience of slicing a piece off a rocoto, tasting
it, finding it fruity with no heat, so I sliced up the rest and threw it in
a salad. Mid-meal one of my fellow diners got a heat blast from the salad,
so I instructed my 12 year old daughter to grab a piece of the rocoto and
test it. She got the same effect as me, fruity with no heat. Then, last
mouthful of salad on my plate gives me a zap of heat also. One of my
suppliers tells me that rocotos vary in heat dramatically from the stem end
of the chile (very hot) to the other end (very mild). Is this correct ?
And while I am on the subject of heat, does a chile that is not ripe have
less heat than one that is ripe ? I'm talking here about a chile that is a
month away from being ripe (you may ask why you would want to eat one of
these but this is merely passing on one of my customer's queries), as
opposed to say a ripe green jalapeno yet to turn red (which in my experience
do not seem to change much in heat level).
Ian Sinclair
The Fiery Foods Co. Ltd