Picking Produce - Jalapenos

My love of chilies - it's probably got something to do with the fact that I'm half Korean. Or maybe not.  There are, after all, lots of chili heads whose native cuisines have very little heat built into them... 

Whatever its origins, my love of hot and spicy foods has been with me since I was a kimchi gobbling toddler. When I was younger, I would eat some kind of hot sauce or chili with just about any savory food without much regard for whether it really suited the dish. But the past few years I've found my palate mimicking my life - editing, simplifying, and trying to appreciate things within their own unique contexts. No sriracha on my pizza, no sambal on my burger, and a lot less Tapatio on my pasta when I'm at a loss for red chili flakes.

That said, when a dish allows for the introduction of heat without some fundamental assault on its flavor profile, I still tend to like it extra spicy. And while there are chilis that do certain jobs better, the jalapeno is my go-to for a mild, multi-purpose flavor and a healthy capacity for heat - if you choose the right ones.

Hot, hotter, hottest.

When I want really hot jalapenos, I look for two things on the outside: STRETCH MARKS (pictured) and a SUNBURN (not pictured). By stretch marks, I mean those striations you can clearly see on that third pepper. And by sunburn, I mean patches of near black coloring usually found near the stem.

This sucker needs some Palmer's Cocoa Butter...

Another indication of higher heat levels is an orange-ish tinge to the veins found on the inside when you cut the pepper open.  If you're looking for something milder, pick the ones with a lighter, more verdant green like the kind you find on a fresh green bell pepper.  And if they feel relatively heavy for their size, that higher water content usually also results in a milder chili.

orange

veins

Now, this isn't scientifically proven to my knowledge.  But on the other hand, if you consider my cooking career a now decades long experiment in which nearly every jalapeno with stretch marks and sunburn has turned out to be much hotter than its more aesthetically pleasing counterparts, that's a lotta points of observation proving my hypothesis. 

Off to finish cooking tonight's Indian-inspired dinner with a healthy serving of cucumber, cilantro and extrahot jalapeno raita...

shinae


P.S. Do *NOT* rub your nose or eyes after handling a hot chili - no matter how wretched your springtime allergies - like I did last night even though I know so much better... :|