1d ago

A potential ‘anti-spice’ that could dial down the heat of fiery food

news.osu.edu

14 comments

Really confused on the purpose for this. Pepper growers have a petty good handle on how to dial up/down the heat level of peppers (stress tends to increase the heat). We also have people breeding tons of new varieties of peppers with different shapes, colours, flavours, textures, and heat levels.
Check this out:
These are habanada peppers. A variation on the habanero, they have no heat at all! Similar flavour but zero capsaicin, just like a sweet bell pepper.
- I want spicy salsa, my mom cant handle spice. If this is what i think it is, i can just add it to hers and be happy.
  
  Yes! And you can mix and match with regular habaneros to tune your own spice level until it’s perfect. You can basically achieve any spice level between zero and full habanero by combining in different ratios!
- Does anyone make a jalapeno heat habanero to your knowledge?
  I'd love to be able to put them in things without making half the table cry
  
  I’m not sure! What you can do though is use habanadas together with a habanero as a way of diluting the heat. If it’s a saucy dish you can just cook with a small piece of one as needed, then use nadas for the main pepper flavour.
  If it’s something like a stir fry then just cut the pepper, remove the seeds, then stir fry with half or two halves of the seeded pepper, then remove or otherwise don’t eat it. It’s common in Chinese dishes to include a very hot pepper that you’re not supposed to eat which just imparts a bit of its heat to the dish (because it’s not chopped up or crushed it doesn’t release too much heat unless really cooked a lot).

Spicy food that isn't spicy is exactly what we've all been waiting for. It's all so clear now.
- I like spicy food and use so much pepper and chili that also my girlfriend got used to it. But when I cook for other folks I don't know yet it's sometimes hard to correctly estimate the appropriate amount to add. And if it tends to be too hot for someone, it'd be great to have an anti-spice to offer. Of course you can also add something creamy but that also changes the look, texture and taste.
  
  So how have you been able to cook for others in the meanwhile?

Fun fact: the Scoville heat unit basically measures the amount of sugar water it takes to mask the spiciness of a given pepper.
- Hmm, so they did find a use for homeopathy after all.

Isn't that what Sichuan peppers do?

Just eat some mints before the meal.
/s

and get rid of my one kitchen crutch? absolutely not

14 comments