[CH] We Already Knew This
Dave Drum (dirty_dave@chillicooks.org)
Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:18:33 -0500
Folks, we are well and truly SCREWED! The New York times has found out
what we knew all along. And they are blabbing it to the world. Chilies
will become so popular that we'll not be able to afford them.
Shortages, real or contrived, will force the gummint to regulate and
ration capsaicin bearing pods ... OH! Woe is us!!!!
FROM: Today's New York Times
There’s More Than Heat to a Pepper’s Personality
By MARLENA SPIELER
Published: September 27, 2006
POPPING a fiery jalapeńo into your mouth might earn you points for
bravado. But that jolt of heat, produced by the compound capsaicin,
isn’t all there is to chilies. That fire can obscure what lies
beneath, and what can be brought out in cooking chilies: a palette of
flavors and perfumes, unique and varied.
One way to understand and appreciate those flavors is to taste some
peppers.
Dried chili is easy: a taste can be a small bit or a pinch of chili
flakes.
For fresh peppers, the place to start is with a tiny bite from the
pointed end, because the stem end is hotter. You want to avoid the
seeds and veins because they carry the most fire. If the chili is a
hot one, the bite can be as minuscule as a pinhead.
If you sniff, chew and suck on the morsel, you can explore its taste
and aroma as you would with wine or cheese. Some flavors jump out,
while others linger in the background. Scotch bonnet peppers, and
habanero varieties like the Grenada, for instance, are known for their
powerful heat. But they also have a fruity, minty flavor that is
present in Jamaican jerk dishes.
Other fresh chilies may have a whiff of banana or sweet red pepper,
citrus, tomatoes or herbs.
The spectrum of dried chilies, such as the ancho, mulato and guajillo,
offer an even more complex range of flavors, as they dance from
chocolaty, smoky, dusky, anise-y and raisiny, to cinnamon-scented or
even cherrylike.
The lush flavor of padrone peppers really comes out when they are
flash-fried in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt. But
eating them is a bit of culinary Russian roulette — occasionally one
will hit your mouth like a bolt of lightning.
I’ve focused on cooking with chilies that give a distinct flavor to
the food of three nations: Peru, Turkey and China.
One of the unfamiliar but delightful tastes in many Andean dishes is
the ají amarillo chili. A yellowish pepper, an inch to an
inch-and-a-half wide and 4 or 5 inches long, it has a citrusy flavor
and earthy heat.
It not only gives Peruvians a taste of home, but also can inspire
other chefs.
At a recent dinner at the James Beard House for alumni of Restaurant
Daniel, Alex Lee, the restaurant’s former executive chef, who is now
executive chef at the Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury, Long Island,
prepared a soup of tomato and ajís with nectarine, basil and lobster,
using cooked and raw ajís and tomatoes, giving the soup an almost
ceviche-like flavor.
“I love to marry ají with citrus flavors such as grapefruit, lemon,
orange or yuzu,’’ Mr. Lee said, “and lots of fresh herbs: cilantro,
mint and basil.’’
I like a traditional Peruvian potato salad, papas a la huancaína, in a
rich cheesy sauce imbued with ají amarillos. I added a touch of citrus
to a recipe from Dr. Noah Stroe, a San Francisco veterinarian
originally from Lima, Peru.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at the Union Square
Greenmarket, Tim Stark of Eckerton Hill Farm sells a changing array of
fresh chilies, including several ajís. They should be available for
about another month. Ají amarillo paste is available at Kalustyan’s,
123 Lexington Avenue at 28th Street, (212) 685-3451.
Small dried chilies are an obvious part of many Sichuan dishes, but
what is less obvious is how much flavor, rather than just heat, they
give the food.
Stir-fried in oil, dried chilies like Thais, arbols and Japones add a
smoky complexity to whatever they are cooked with: chicken, tofu,
beef, shellfish, a whole steamed fish.
I’ve taken a non-Chinese turn here with a Chinese technique. I
stir-fried a huge pile of dried chilies in oil to extract flavor
without overwhelming heat, then added chickpeas and Mediterranean
flavors. I discarded the chilies before eating the chickpeas.
The last recipe, for turkey kebabs, comes from Southeast Anatolia in
Turkey, where the local cuisine features dried flakes of the sweet,
earthy local peppers named for the town of Urfa and for nearby Aleppo
in Syria. Drive through the countryside and you’ll see the peppers
drying in the sun, waiting to be coarsely crushed. Sometimes rubbed
with a little oil for an almost burnished effect, they form a light,
fluffy pile, ready to be sprinkled and savored deeply.
-30-
--
ENJOY!!!
--------
UNCLE DIRTY DAVE'S KITCHEN --
Home of Yaaaaa Hooooo Aaahhh!!! HOT SAUCE and Hardin Cider
"No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer."
--John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough