Quote:
Originally Posted by Arri London
zxcvbob wrote:
On 7/11/2010 9:57 PM, lil abner wrote:
zxcvbob wrote:
Most store-bought jalapeņos are mild. Not just slightly hot, but mild
like a bell pepper. (I seek out the ones with cracks in the skins,
they often have a little heat.) So I started buying serranos, but they
are not really hot either now. Yesterday I bought a handful of little
Thai peppers thinking at least they would be hot. Well, some of them
are, barely.
This is starting to **** me off.
Fresh habaneros, dried chilitepins and chipotles, and cayenne pepper
don't taste right for a lot of uses, even though they are still hot.
Maybe I need to try the Asian and Mexican grocery stores.
Bob
You do need to try those shops. Their customers are unlikely to tolerate
any dumbing down of capsaicin content 
Raise your own and don't harvest until ripe.
I raised some Jalapenos one year.
I harvested them barehanded, about half a bushel.
For many many days some, of my favorite parts, were plenty hot.
I can kid about it now.
I've had several years in a row of crop failures. :-( Looks like I will
at least get a few this year.
I made a couple of batches of picante sauce last year. My recipe has
5:2:1 ratio of tomatoes, peppers, and onions, by weight. One batch was
made with 2 pounds of grocery store jalapeņos. It turned out "medium"
(I was pleased that it was that hot; the peppers were pretty mild but
got hotter when cooked). The other batch had 1.5 pounds of the same
barely-warm jalapeņos and 1/2 pound of home grown green jalapeņos from
my brother's garden in Houston. That batch will knock your socks off.
I'm going to enter a jar of the "hot" in the county fair next month.
I think the growers are just pampering the pepper plants and then
rushing the peppers to market before they develop their heat. I'll try
some Fresno chile peppers next time I see them. They have to wait for
those to turn red.
Bob
That is very true. Chiles (like grapes) are best when they are not
pampered. Let them suffer a bit for best results |
I'm a crackhead, too (when it comes to Jalapenos). Perhaps the ones you're buying are hybridized to grow in northern climates en masse. Grow your own; they're easy(at least, here in WI
) Mine are semi-hot. I like the flavor of pequins better; but they're pretty far apart.