On Oct 15, 10:54*pm, "Bob Terwilliger" >
wrote:
> Christine wrote:
> >> If you want the Scotch Bonnet flavor, you have to cut the Scotch Bonnet
> >> open. If you want to minimize the capsaicin while retaining the flowery
> >> flavor of the chile, you remove the seeds and the membrane. That's pretty
> >> elementary knowledge about cooking with chiles.
>
> > Not necessarily.
>
> > I had a friend a quite a few years ago, who fixed a dish at my house.
> > He loved hot foods, even though some of his friends didn't. *He saw
> > Scotch Bonnets/habaneros on sale in the market, and decided to buy a
> > bunch of them and add them to the dish. *He did add them whole. *I
> > know, I saw the dish.
>
> > The dish without them (he had made it before) wasn't that bad. *When
> > he added them it was just too blasted hot, and I couldn't even begin
> > to eat it.. *Even whole, they added a ton of heat.
>
> > Maybe other chiles don't..but these sure did.
>
> > So, the heat (at least from my experience) does transfer.

It does, but it takes quite a while.
>
> Without knowing more about the dish, I can't comment, other than to say that
> the chiles must have been damaged in some way in order to let heat into the
> dish.
>
> Try this: Put a whole habanero into your mouth. Let it sit there for five
> minutes. You will observe *no* heat from it. The heat only comes out when
> the cuticle is broken.

Everything Bob wrote in this thread is correct. You have to cook an
intact chile for quite a while to breach its protective coating. The
earlier mentioned prank could work well with chiltepin peppers because
they're small.
An idea, Fiery Surprise Chili. I should grow chiltepins next year.
>
> Bob

--Bryan