The problem is that a lot of home cooks don’t understand heat… Literally. They think it’s like adding a little bit of salt, which doesn’t do anything. They believe if they adds a little capsaicin, the substance that makes chiles hot, all will be well. Except it isn’t: Heat is cumulative. It stacks up on your tongue as time passes. If you’re not familiar with terrain, it’ll be too late. You’ll finally realize the mild-looking pepper you just bit into are actualy hot as fire.
To get at the flavor beneath, you’ve got to learn about map of chili peppers first; and then dial back the burn. But it’s all very complicated, and that’s what this visual guide (above) makes clear by layering it out. Where do chiles comes from? How are they grown? What make them hot? All of these questions is answered, which makes sense of the chili universe.
Understanding Chili Heat and Scoville Units
Observe: Different parts of the world produce specific types for our pantries; India provides the extremely hot ghost pepper, Mexico the mild poblano and all-purpose jalapeño. And those aren’t haphazard plantings, they’re decades (centuries!) of farming development, refined over time.
In fact, take a glance at the chart: The way the peppers is ranked based off heat seems arbitrary, until you find yourself jumping from level to level. From medium to hot is quite a leap, and that’s when many beginning cook go wrong. “Oh, I want some spice,” they think, grabbing a serrano instead of another jalapeño. But that’s double-plus hot, and will transform the flavor of whatever dish you toss it with.
These are Scoville Heat Units. Capsaicin concentration can be expressed numerically; these is called Scoville Heat Units (SHU). This unit of measurement is represented on the graphic from zero at one end (for bell peppers) to somewhere north of two million at the other end (Carolina Reaper). That’s a big spread and most of us spend our time within the bottom half of that range doing things like cooking food.
Let’s start at the very low end: a bell pepper scores zero Scoville Heat Units, ideal if you want to roast or stuff it because heat isn’t a problem but texture is. The jalapeño range fall in the lower half of the spectrum, anywhere from two thousand to eight thousand. There’s enough kick here to make meal interesting, but not so much as to overpower anything else going on.
The chart nicely shows this trend and how each pepper fit into an overall picture. So now you know: You can plan accordingly when making a dish. For example, if the recipe requires something with mild heat and all you have are hot cayenne peppers, you’ll want to adjust to match. Cayenne has a kick of 30,000 units. This means it’s ten times hotter then the jalapeno. Don’t ignore that, or you might end up in hospital during dinner.
In addition to variety, processing methods has a lot to do with flavor development. Dried peppers (such as guajillo or ancho) impart a deeper fruitiness and smokiness that’s key to creating complex sauces, whereas the freshness of raw peppers have brightness and a bit of crunch. As the infographic points out, when a pepper dries, it will concentrate its sugar content and change our perception of its heat level. It will also add yet another dimension when smoked.
A chipotle is nothing more than a smoked jalapeno, but it undergoes such a chemcial transformation through smoking that it tastes nothing like a fresh one at all. You can’t always swap dried for fresh, which is why some mole recipes aren’t interchangeable. Though a seemingly small detail, the slow break-down of a pepper during the drying process make mole what it is.
With such peppers, you have to be patient. It takes up to 150 days from seed to harvest, but it is more likely between 70 and 100, depending on what kind of pepper you’re growing and where you live. As the graphic describes, the process go from germination to flowering, reminding us that heat is a natural defense mechanism for plant.
Remember: Hot plants want to stay hot. That’s why all this happens, the plant evolved with heat as a way to defend itself against mammals devouring its seeds. We humans? We are smart enough to do exactly that, despite everything nature throws at us.
Growing our own makes us wise to that biological fact… And respectful of it. We know that waiting for the peppers to show their true colors means not only full flavor but also the highest level of capsaicin, or “hotness,” per fruit. Many novice gardeners pick too soon (tempted by haste to cook!), and get an underdeveloped-flavored and milder-hot meal instead.
All told, learning how to use chiles comes down to finding balance. Aim for a dish that will excite your tastebuds, yet never overwhelm them to the point where you can’t recall what exactly you’re eating. And while I created this chart to serve as a reference, keep in mind that it’s no rulebook. It’ll help you understand the range of each type; then let your tongue lead the way on deciding when (and how) to add it.
From a mild salad to a blistering curry, the goal is to find the balance between the two. Begin with baby steps, taste frequently, and remind yourself: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The fire goes away quickly, but the taste lingers long after. Your next bite may become a revelation … or perhaps a reminder to practice restraint.
It’s up to you.