That's right! It's not the seeds that will make a pepper hot!
Inspired with some kind of sick desire for things spicy, I planted two habanero plants in our backyard garden. Coming in at a beautiful golden yellow-orange, the lantern shaped habaneros are almost good enough looking to suffice as eye candy. But, ranking in at a wopping 300,000 on the Scoville rating system (compared to 3-8,000 jalapeños or 10-20,000 serranos), why just look at them?
The chemical that causes the burning reaction in all hot peppers is called capsaicin (cap-sigh-ih-sin). This chemical is concentrated in the internal "ribs" of the pepper. The seeds don't contribute to the heat, they just seem to because they are located on the ribs.
So don't just pick out the seeds of a hot pepper. Core the darn thing. Unless of course you're me. Then you need to mix a whole habanero, chopped, three banana peppers, chopped, 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1 cup of water, 1 tbsp. cumin and 1 tsp. salt and boil it until the stench curls the carpet and knocks your wife into a disgruntled, nostril-pained frenzy. Then blend, and voila!
Sure makes good hotsauce!
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin)
Sincerely,
Anthony
2 comments:
I'm so glad you posted this! My friend & I have a new "love" & it involves grilled jalapeños w/ cream cheese & bacon. The last batch were burning hot & we couldn't figure out why since we were careful to remove all the seeds. Now it makes sense!lol
Courtney had some of that sauce on her eggs and LOVED it :) thanks guys!
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