Chilis

[GMan]

Hell-o all,

Without wanting to hijack another thread, I am curious, how many of you like to cook with and eat chilis?

Personally I love them almost as much as my Kilts.

[Andrew Breecher]

The hotter the better, but I don't like green chilis. Bring on the habaneros and cayenne!

Andrew.

[The Wizard of BC]

Living in Texas at Ft. Hood and El Paso I got a taste for grilled sweet green chilies.

[cormacmacguardhe]

My wife can not handle the hot stuff so I am the only one in the house who uses them. As hot as you want to make it is the way I eat it.

[davedove]

I use them sometimes, but I'm not big on the really hot stuff because I'm a sissy gringo. I do however like a chile FLAVOR. It seems to me that a lot of people are just pain junkies and like to make things hot just for the sake of being hot. It's one thing to sweat when you're engaging in physical activity, but not when you're sitting down to eat!

[Paul Henry]

mixed with some chocolate in a mexican bean sauce...
sliced with garlic and kept in mustard oil for about 2 months...very hot!
light sugar syrup with a little finely chjopped red chillies with fresh fruit salad, especially melon...

[Mike n NC]

I use them sometimes, but I'm not big on the really hot stuff because I'm a sissy gringo. I do however like a chile FLAVOR. It seems to me that a lot of people are just pain junkies and like to make things hot just for the sake of being hot. It's one thing to sweat when you're engaging in physical activity, but not when you're sitting down to eat!

Wuss... Actually Dave when the heat overpowers the flavor people are just wasting their time so you are right, after a fashion. The other side of that coin is that the more heat you can take, the better to pick up the more subtle flavors of the pepper.

Both the wife and I use a lot of peppers in our cooking, probably one of the reasons I don't have ulcers after all I have done to my stomach over the years. She can't take it the way I like it but if I am wanting something seriously hot, I split it into two batches, her's a little milder.

We use green, yellow and red Chilis, Jalapeños, Habaneros, Charleston Hots (a fairly new hybrid of the Habanero) I especially like both Philippine and Thai Hots. Cayenne I use ground, in place of Paprika and when all else fails I reach for the "Dave's Insanity Sauce".

Capsicinoids (what makes'em hot) is an oily substance so water and beer only spread it around. In a emergency eat buttered bread and wash it down with milk. Capsicinoids are also used to manufactrue many of the medications used in treating ulcers and some other stomach problems.

Want to grow your own? Try this: [url]http://www.tomatogrowers.com/hot.htm[a/url]

Mike

[GlassMan]

I absolutely love eating and cooking with chilies. Half of my family lives in South Texas and I've learned some mean recipes from them -- stuff that will make your sinuses clear for months!

But I have one cautionary tale for all cooks.

Once I was making jalepeno poppers. The way I make them I clean out all the seeds and save them so that I can include them in the batter. The seeds are the hottest part of the jalepeno and so are worth the effort. Well, I was being very careful not to get any of the oil from the peppers on me and not to touch my eyes or nose while working. I was even wearing latex gloves! Right as I finished battering the peppers and before I started frying them I needed to go to the restroom. I took off my gloves and went off to urinate. Apparently there had been a small hole in my gloves and one hand did have some of the pepper oil on the fingers. Needless to say I was in intense pain for about 2 hours as a part of me felt like it was being burned off.

So when working closely with peppers, especially the inside of peppers always wash your hands thoroughly before touching any part of your own body, no matter what other precautions you might have taken.

[toadinakilt]

I like Valentina sauce...once you've spent a significant amount of time in Mexico, you spend the rest of your life trying to mimic the flavors while back home...

[kiltimabar]

Wuss... Actually Dave when the heat overpowers the flavor people are just wasting their time so you are right, after a fashion. The other side of that coin is that the more heat you can take, the better to pick up the more subtle flavors of the pepper.

I also prefer my chili to be not so much hot, but a broader range of flavors, so I use several different kinds of chilis and spices (rarely the same ones twice) to get the effect of a blend of flavors rather than have one dominating flavor. It's rather like music; instead of having one instrument play REALLY LOUD, several instruments playing at the same time create a more interesting composition.