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At the local supermarket I found all of the following in the peppers section: yellow, red, orange, jalapeno, red Fresno, serrano-hot, habanero, Anaheim, and pasilla. You can understand why I am confused not knowing what to add to what and when. Any comments or suggestions?
Usually a recipe will direct you to the preferred pepper for that recipe. Different peppers are used for different purposes. Flavor varies a bit but mostly the noticeable difference is heat.
With bell peppers, the pepper gets a milder flavor as it ages and colors. But mostly with bell peppers it doesn't make enough difference so color is the deciding factor: how it looks in a dish. Although, if I am fire roasting bell peppers, I only use the red ones.
Jalapenos should be hot. Habaneros are too hot for most people. Anaheims and Pasillas are milder and are generally used in Mexican cooking, although Anaheims are also used in Indian and African cooking.
If you buy a jar of diced green chilies, those are Anaheims.
At the local supermarket I found all of the following in the peppers section: yellow, red, orange, jalapeno, red Fresno, serrano-hot, habanero, Anaheim, and pasilla. You can understand why I am confused not knowing what to add to what and when. Any comments or suggestions?
Each pepper tastes different and has a different level of heat. Recipes will tell you which pepper to use. Otherwise, a Google search will tell you flavor profiles, best uses, and heat levels.
[quote=DawnMTL;54600323]Choose the recipe before you buy random ingredients. Pick a recipe that you want to make and buy the appropriate ingredients. Zero guesswork.[/QUOTe
I dont always use a recipe for some things but peppers might help brighten up the taste.
Hatch chilis, very popular in New Mexico, have a near-unbeatable combination of spice and flavor. They are hard to find outside the southwest, but if you can get some, try them. A local restaurant that specializes in New Mexico food has large quantities trucked in once annually, and they roast them and sell them for people to use in their own cooking.
I use dried chilis quite often in Mexican and Thai dishes. I also use fresh chilis. I started getting Hatch chilis fresh when in season and roast them myself. Bell peppers aren't spicy and we cook with them every week. I use green bell as part of the "Trinity" in Cajun and Creole dishes or in sofrito for Latin dishes. Yellow and red bells are great stuffed and as ingredients in other dishes. Red bells make a great sauce for homemade lobster or crab ravioli. Love Italian sausage and peppers, either over pasta or in a sub. Jalapenos, especially ripe ones (red), make excellent ABTs and armadillo eggs. Habaneros and serranos make good salsas. Xni Pec is one of my favorite salsas that use habaneros.
from wiki-pedia my fav bell peppers....not a fan of hot peppers...what goes in hot ...comes out hot
The most common colors of bell peppers are green, yellow, orange and red. More rarely, brown, white, lavender, and dark purple peppers can be seen, depending on the variety. Most typically, unripe fruits are green or, less commonly, pale yellow or purple. Red bell peppers are simply ripened green peppers,[9] although the Permagreen variety maintains its green color even when fully ripe. As such, mixed colored peppers also exist during parts of the ripening process. Green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow or orange peppers, with red bell peppers being the sweetest. The taste of ripe peppers can also vary with growing conditions and post-harvest storage treatment; the sweetest fruits are allowed to ripen fully on the plant in full sunshine, while fruit harvested green and after-ripened in storage is less sweet.[citation needed]
Jalapenos should be hot. Habaneros are too hot for most people. Anaheims and Pasillas are milder and are generally used in Mexican cooking, although Anaheims are also used in Indian and African cooking.
However, they, like Scotch Bonnet peppers, are EXTREMELY flavorful (much more so than most other hot peppers) and as such, can add a lot to a dish. If you want to reduce the heat, take the seeds out. Maybe even pickle them a bit.
I'll add some additional info to this very fun thread.
In the U.S. We think of 'peppers' and 'chilies' as one family. They're not. As far as I can understand the technical, biological differences, Chilies have capsicum, peppers do not. Capsicum is what created that spicy heat. Also,Chilies originated south of the border - mostly Mexico. Peppers originated elsewhere - Europe, I think.
There are literally thousands of different types of peppers and chilies. Besides the ones mentioned already, I see fresh cubanelle, Scotch bonnet, and Thai bird chilies often. banana peppers fresh or pickked/bottled. And shishi-to peppers (which might actually be chilies???)
You CAN eat them raw, but several chilies aren't intended for eating raw: Poblanos, Anaheims, Hatch, shishi-to and Thai bird chilies. (Hell, those Thai bird chilies aren't meant to be eaten cooked! They just flavor the sauce. Trust me - been there, done that, it was painful.) Except for the bird chilies, roasting then peeling is the way to go.
Typically, the darker jalapenos are the hottest and the flesh closest to the stem is hotter than the tip.
Want to minimize the heat from any chili? Remove all the seeds and the white ribs. Cooked a dish and it's too hot? Several methods: I add a bit of sugar and/or lime/lemon juice. Other people out a whole peeled potato in there for awhile which apparently absorbs some of the heat (I've never done this). I have added corn to too-hot soups, stews and salsas, which works very well (add them and cook 1-2 minutes, fresh or defrosted frozen).
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