The Pepper Lady
Allison Sosna is known in the culinary world as The Pepper Lady. A Master Chef with 17 years of experience and a Certified Food & Spirit Professional, she has become a go-to source for information on all things pepper. Not only is she the president of The Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University and founder of the International Hot Sauce Expo, she has also written for publications such as The Huffington Post and Food Arts Magazine.
Sosna will be highlighting the various types of peppers and tips on how to select, store and cook them. She will also be sharing recipes.
She recently answered a few questions about herself and her latest venture.
Perhaps you have heard of the different chili peppers. Each pepper has its own unique flavor, and each is a bit different to cook. It is important to know how to prepare each pepper in a way that brings out its best qualities. This article will take a look at the various types of chili peppers, as well as how best to cook them.
Towards the end of this article, you will find several recipes for cooking chili peppers. Feel free to try them out and experiment with different types of chili peppers!
Jalapeno: The Jalapeno pepper is quite popular among home cooks. It is a very mild pepper with a medium heat level. It is often used in Mexican dishes and Tex-Mex cuisine. Frying it brings out its flavor, while grilling makes it sweeter and smokier. Its flavor boosts the taste of many dishes including eggs, sauces, soups and salsas!
Cayenne: Cayenne is a very spicy pepper with a hot taste that burns the tongue and throat. Due to its rather strong flavors, it is best suited for use in combination with other foods such as eggs or soup. It is also commonly used in hot sauce!
Serrano: Serrano peppers are considered by many to
Peppers! So many different varieties, so many different ways to cook them.
I’ll start with the basics, how to select a pepper, how to store it and how to cook it. I’ll then go into detail on the individual peppers, including their history and some tips I’ve learned.
Chili peppers, also known as peppers or chillies, are the fruits of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae.
The most common chili peppers are called sweet peppers or bell peppers and originate from Mexico. Chili peppers are widely used in many cuisines to add spiciness to dishes.
Toxicity: The hotness of chili peppers is measured in Scoville heat units (SHU), which are a function of capsaicin concentration. The substance capsaicin is found in large quantities in the placental tissue (which holds the seeds) of hot chili peppers. The heat of a chili pepper is due to capsaicin and related capsaicinoids, which are alkaline compounds that act as irritants to mammals when inhaled or ingested, making chili peppers taste hot.
Peppers are so diverse that there is a bewildering array of shapes and colors. There are bell peppers, which are also called sweet peppers. There are chiles and jalapenos, which are also referred to as hot peppers. And then there are banana peppers, which have a mild flavor.
There’s a pepper out there for every taste. If you want to spice up your life with something sweet and piquant, try the red, yellow or orange bell pepper, with the red being the sweetest of them all. If you want something spicy and flavorful, try the different types of chiles or jalapenos. Or, if you just want to kick up your meal with some heat, get a jar of banana peppers from your local grocery store.
The most common type of pepper is the bell pepper. The long green fruit is about four inches in length and two inches wide at its widest point. It has thick walls and fleshy pulp that contains seeds that can be easily removed by cutting them out of the fruit before eating it.
They can be eaten raw or cooked in many dishes like salsas, salads and stir-fry. The taste of bell pepper is very mild and they can be used to add color to food
Chili peppers are very complex and diversified individual fruits, but they also belong to a group of plants that is diverse and complex in its own right. They can be considered as belonging to the Solanaceae family of flowering plants. This family includes more than 2,500 different species of annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs (the exact number is still being debated by botanists).
With the exception of the potato, all chili peppers belong to the same species: Capsicum annuum. This species is divided into five different varieties: C. annuum var. annuum, C. annuum var. glabriusculum (the bell pepper), C. annuum var. pubescens (the hot Hungarian wax pepper), C. frutescens (Cayenne pepper) and C. baccatum (Tabasco pepper).
Pepper is a spice that add flavor and heat to foods. The spiciness of peppers can vary widely, ranging from bell peppers (sweet and mild) to habaneros (extremely spicy).
The term “pepper” comes from the black pepper plant, but the term is used generically to describe many different types of spices.
Soursop is a fruit that grows on tall trees in tropical areas. The fruit has an oval shape that resembles a pumpkin with brownish-green skin. It has large, hard seeds and pale yellow, white or red flesh. Soursop contains vitamins C and A, as well as iron and calcium.
Tamarind is a fruit that grows on tall trees in tropical areas. The fruit has an egg-shaped pod with brownish-red or light brown skin. On average, tamarind pods are about 1 foot long and 3 inches wide. One tamarind pod contains about 15 to 20 seeds. Tamarind is commonly sold in cans or jars and can be found at most grocery stores, especially those with large Hispanic populations. Tamarind can be eaten whole or made into a paste or syrup.
Jalapeno Peppers
Named after Jalapa, Veracruz,
