Who eats hot peppers and how do you fix them or whatever do you do with them?

[audreyh1]

Having lived in Texas my entire life, jalapeños are a staple. Probably why Whataburger is the only burger joint (fast food anyway) that I’ll even consider, as they offer burgers with jalapeños. But while I can tolerate lots of heat, I prefer flavor. We love Hatch chile peppers on just about everything. Before they were available in local grocery stores, my wife and I would make a special trip to New Mexico every year and return home with grocery sacks full of them. We once flew in/out the same day, so we didn’t have any luggage. Carried on 4 large bags on the return trip.

Fortunately for us here HEB roasts fresh Hatch Green Chiles at the harvest time. They freeze well. But I’ve gotten lazy and don’t like to mess with the peeling and seeding anymore.

 

[engineernerd]

Ever since the first batch of covid my taste isn't there. I find adding spice, particularly peppers to help me remember tasting food. I'm the guy who orders "Thai hot", or level 5 Chinese food. A few times ago they forgot the peppers. The waitress brought me out a bowl full of chill oil.

Sorry for your misfortune. I hate to laugh at others' troubles, but your post reminded me of a YouTube clip that made the rounds, where her friends were serving a lady with the same problem various things that should have made her gag and/or spit them out, asking her to guess what the drinks were, and she downed them all with the same puzzled expression. Funny but scary, too.

 

[audreyh1]

That looks really good.

It’s a lovely dish, and living on the gulf coast we get beautiful red snapper. It’s quite expensive, but so very fine.

 

[Walt34]

Decades ago a good, albeit somewhat slow, friend of mine after a few beers would bet me that I couldn't eat a jalapeno pepper from the jar on the bar. I'd win the bet and collect from one to five bucks depending on how many beers he'd had. He finally learned not to make silly bets like that.

Now I just put them on my subs, salads and pizza.

 

[Al18]

I’ve tried pickled jalepeno’s and much prefer fresh ones.

Yes, I wear gloves when slicing any hot peppers.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

I have a big garden here in MN and raise a lot of peppers. I eat the bells and bananas with most everything. The hotter ones get used in salsa and a venison summer sausage recipe I use.

Advice when preparing these peppers. Wash your hands before you touch your face or use the rest room.

 

[audreyh1]

Our favorite sausage which we mix into scrambled eggs is from Opa’s Smoked Meats in Fredericksburg TX. We have to order it in large quantities as the local stores don’t carry it.

We also add the Central Market Hatch green chile salsa!

 

[djsander]

Living in New Mexico its all about the Hatch chiles. Green chile cheese burgers, green chiles on pizza, different egg dishes with chiles, mac and cheese with green chiles, and the list goes on. Or red chiles. Or Christmas (both). Now I’m hungry.

 

[TheWizard]

Love Pork Chile Verde. Do you have a recipe to share?

I have a basic recipe but keep tweaking and adjusting it from one batch to the next.
Starting point uses these ingredients:

I use more like 3 lbs of pork butt, cut into 3/4" bitesize pieces, which are then covered with the seasoning (equal amounts of the four ingredients) and then browned in my 6-quart Cuisinart multi cooker, usually in two batches.

The salsa part of that recipe is woefully deficient.
I use these products as the starting point for the salsa:

Lately, I've been dicing up a few jalapeno and/or serrano peppers as well to liven things up a bit.

After all of the pork is browned, all remaining ingredients go into the multi cooker which gets switched to slow-cook mode after the mix gets up to simmering. I then let it simmer for two hours or more and make a pot of white rice to eat under it.

It's hard to go wrong with variations on this dish...

 

[AudiDudi]

Especially if you plan on taking off your contact lenses later that evening. Ouch. You only make that mistake once!

Same for taking a break and going to the bathroom

 

[Flyfish1]

Peppers grow well here despite the rocky and limited soil next to the ocean. The extra jalapenos and habaneros I pickle in the fall and munch on them through the winter.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have many volunteer pequin pepper plants growing in my backyard. One day, about 20 years ago, a pequin plant appeared in my backyard, and the plants kept multiplying. Only much later did I learn its name, and that it's also called bird pepper because birds eat the pepper and disperse the seeds. It's native to Mexico and the Southwest.

The miniature pequin pepper packs a punch WAY above its class. Other than providing heat, it has no other flavor, unlike jalapeno and habanero. Hence, it's quite neutral and I use it on any kind of dishes when I want to spice it up. The fresh pequin does not keep long, so I keep it in dry form. To use, I grind it finely, and fill a salt-pepper shaker with the fine powder. More than a few shakes of this powder, and the uninitiated will cry murder.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, the wild chiltepin Capsicum annuum is the ancestor to most North American chiles today. All those different varieties we use are cultivars. I had a plant one time, they are very pretty. Harvested the dried red chiles. Ho boy, did they pack a punch!

 

[CincyDave]

I love spicy foods and hot peppers but DW doesn't, so I have to be careful when cooking and add the heat to mine separately. I grow all kinds of peppers with everything from sweet bell up to Carolina reapers. Make various types of hot sauce, salsa, and dried pepper flakes/powders to use in cooking. About the only kind I haven't grown are any of the Aji types from South America. Also grow tomatillos for Chile Verde that some others have mentioned.

For the Jalapenos, I use in nachos, omelets, tacos, burgers, poppers and anything else I can think of.

 

[JackJester]

Living in New Mexico its all about the Hatch chiles. Green chile cheese burgers, green chiles on pizza, different egg dishes with chiles, mac and cheese with green chiles, and the list goes on. Or red chiles. Or Christmas (both). Now I’m hungry.

+1 Our first year of retirement we went to Taos NM for the Hatch Chili harvest in late Aug. Farmers were on every street corner and the market with big tumblers roasting those local chilis over flame and then selling bags full. We bought pounds of them, and then vacuumed sealed and froze them. 2 years worth. Definitely need to go back. In the mean time we have found some in our local grocery that are close (blend the hot and med and it's perfect)!

 

[Winemaker]

I grow all kinds of peppers and tomatillos, but alternate varieties. When I lived in Wyoming in my early coal mining days, I learned that heat should be used as a flavor enhancer, not as pain inflicter. My 6 Ghost Pepper plants from 6 years ago yielded enough peppers to can and freeze for my lifetime, A mere wetted back of a spoon in a jar of my GP sauce mixed in a bowl of salsa makes a top notch flavor bomb dip. I make my own chipoltle and ancho powdwers as well.

 

[Gumby]

I grow all my own hot peppers right here in Connecticut - Jalapeno, Serrano, Cubanelle, Poblano, Cherry and Anaheim. We eat them fresh, pickle them, can them, smoke them, dry them, and ferment them. We make our own flakes and powders for seasoning and our own hot sauce. The young wife uses them a lot in her cooking. We don't go hotter than serrano, because we like to taste the complexity of the flavor and not just burn our tongues off.

 

[Trailwalker]

I had a roasted Chile guero today with my Sonoran hot dog. Lightly charred, it was delicious, seeds and all. That type of pepper is pale yellow and about as hot as a jalapeño.

 

[Koolau]

Nope: "Food ain't supposed to hurt"

I'm with you. Not a "Pepper." (Wait, that's a drink).

Yeah, just a touch of "heat" in, say chili con carne is okay, but if it's actually "hot" I'm not eating it.

 

[audreyh1]

I really love Poblano chiles, they have such a wonderful flavor. I grill them to roast them for peeling, then add them to various dishes. These days they are often fairly mild, but occasionally you get a hot surprise!

 

[38Chevy454]

Used to live in NM. Grew up in CA. I like many peppers and generally what I think is not much spice, others think is too hot. Love to make jalapeño poppers - stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon. Almost always put salsa on eggs in mornings. Grow jalapeño and hot and mild banana peppers in garden. DW makes a delicious roasted poblano cream sauce that is excellent on grilled meat, or for me on just about anything.

One thing I'm not into is trying to eat the hottest thing I can find. Instead use peppers to appreciate the flavor and some heat. But too much heat takes away from the flavors in the food.

Living in OH, I'm severely disappointed in most spicy food.

 

[audreyh1]

Mmmm, poblano cream sauce!

 

[Time2]

My wife grows Thai peppers, she puts them in a blender with a little garlic and vinegar and blends it up fine. She puts it in a glass jar about 2" wide and 4" tall and stores it in the fridge. We spoon it on meals, or mix it with Fish Sauce or soy sauce that we spoon on other foods. Or we just cut them up into meals.

 

[Surewhitey]

My daily or hot wings is Cholula which is arbol and piquin peppers based.

I used to grill habanero & tomatoes and blend to a salsa when living in Mexico. Char flavor was tasty.

Carolina reaper is stupid hot & took my breath away. Don't do it...

 

[old medic]

We have a raised bed just for peppers, several including a Habanero. It adds extra heat to the milder peppers like banana and poblanos. We make several different mixes of stuff to can... Cowboy Candy, Pepper jelly's and my favorite... Smoked Habanero Salsa, The darker version will make your ears sweat, and wash your hands BEFORE going to the bathroom.