Hot Peppers & Cooking With Them

Did you just eat a Pepper?

Peppers are a family of fruits found in many varieties throughout the world. Most poeple think of them as vegetables, but in fact, they are a fruit produced by the pepper plant. Peppers tend to fall into two categories: sweet and hot.

What makes a "hot" pepper hot is that it contains capsicanoids, more commonly called capsicum, and this chemical is what gives the fruit the hot sensation when it is eaten. Interestingly, birds don't taste this chemical, but mammals do.

The term "peppers" is used for a variety of spices, fruits and vegetables. There are white and black peppers which are cooking spices, and bell or chili peppers which are prepared, cooked and eaten. Hopefully this hub will help you sort them out a bit more and find new ways to cook with them.

Bon Appetit!

Peppercorns - These are the fruit of a vine from India. It's from these that we get our ground pepper spices. Pepper was originally an extremely luxury of the upper class and in medieval times was sometimes used as currency. This form of pepper can be added during or after cooking, to add a light accent of heat to the flavor. Peppercorns can be made into white, black or green peppers depending on how the corns are treated after harvest.

Bell Peppers - These brightly-colored and larger fruits are one of the most commonly cultivated and eaten forms of peppers. They are from the capsicum plant itself. A recessive gene is what gives these peppers their lack of heat, even though they are members of the chile pepper family. Most often when people talk of "peppers" this is what they mean. Sometimes these are also called sweet peppers. They are eaten raw, cooked, pickled, turned into salsa and more.

Chile Peppers - Although bell peppers are also chile peppers, only the hot varieties are called by that name. These are the capsicum fruits with moderate to extreme levels of capsaicins. Most commonly seen in North American are "red chiles" a small bright-red to dark red variety. Famed are the round, yellow-orange "habaneros," the hottest of the chile peppers.

Hot Sauce - This is a cooking or condiment sauce made from hot peppers. Tabasco and cayenne are common sauces made from specific varieties of hot peppers.

INGREDIENTS

• 18 green peppers that are horn-shaped

• 5.5 ounces of feta cheese

• 1 small tomato with skin and seeds removed

• 1 small onion, chopped very fine

• 2 Tbsp. of parsley, chopped very fine

• 2 Tbsp. of red peppers, chopped very fine

• 2 Tbsp. of olive oil for the filling

• 1 C. olive oil for brushing on the peppers

• freshly ground black pepper

COOKING

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil, and put in all the peppers. Boil them for five minutes, just enough to soften them.

2. Drain and rinse the peppers to stop them cooking, then dry them off, slice in half and deseed them. Set aside for now.

3. Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees

4. Making the filling: in a bowl, break up the feta cheese into tiny chunks. Then add the tomato, onion, parsley, red pepper and olive oil, and mix. Season with black pepper to taste.

5. Take each green pepper half and fill with the cheese mixture, placing them in a baking pan. Brush the peppers with olive oil all over.

6. Bake the peppers for approx 30 minutes. You will want the tops to have browned and the filling to have melted, but don't let the peppers burn for best flavor

No one is quite sure just what it is that makes it so some people can eat really hot peppers and others can't. Some people say it's genetic heritage, some people say it's based on what foods you eat as a kid, and some say you just have to work you way up to it.

What everyone does agree on is that, when you eat something that is too hot for your taste, it's damn hard to get your mouth to stop burning! Here are some tricks and tips to putting out a fire on your tongue.

• Do Not Drink Water! This doesn't lessen the burning, it just spreads it around your mouth more evenly. Save the water for later.

• Drink Milk If You Can - milk just happens to counteracts the capsicum effects very efficiently, and can very quickly reduce that burning feeling in the mouth and throat.

• Eat Bread or Rice - the plainer, the better - these two carbohydrates are also good for stopping a five-alarm mouth fire if you can't drink milk. For Indian food, nan or plain rice are good, at a Mexican dinner, try and eat some plain flour tortilla.

• Yogurt - Sometimes found in dishes in Indian meals, this is another dairy-heavy option for reducing the burning in your mouth. Avoid any yogurt curries, as they will just throw more spice on the fire.