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The Days are Cooling Off, But the Heat Is On in the Garden
• by Pat Eby
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Just as the weather cools down in September, pepper production heats up. Multicultural St. Louis is a pepper-head’s dream where East meets West. Peppers reign in Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Szechwan, Korean, Vietnamese and Indian restaurants.
But this worldwide use of chiles didn’t begin until Christopher Columbus brought the piquant plants to Europe from the New World. He named them red peppers, thinking they were relatives of black pepper. (They’re not.) Ferdinand Magellan introduced peppers to Asia and Africa. Five hundred years later, farmers on all continents and in 100 countries from Australia to Zimbabwe cultivate chile peppers.
Today, the adventurous cook can find more specialty peppers than Heinz has varieties fresh at local farmers’ markets. Greg Pusczek, owner of Natures Way Gardens, peddles peppers at the GreenMarket in the Central West End. He grows jalapeños in nonstandard purple and yellow, not just green and red. He offers bell peppers in yellow, orange, red, purple, chocolate and green. Exotic names like Spanish Spice, Aji, Corno di Toro, Italian Roaster, Bounty, Big Jim, Marconi, Big Chili and Fushimi roll off his tongue like a pepper mantra. In addition to plenty-hot Scotch bonnets, serranos, habañeros, Thai, Kung Pao, cayenne and Greek pepperoncini, Pusczek offers thrill-seekers a Jamaican hot variety guaranteed to scorch.
“Only somebody who knows what they’re doing should play with these,” he said. “They register about 275,000 to 350,000 Scoville units on the heat scale.” By comparison, a serrano registers 4,000 Scoville heat units. Pusczek had some advice for cooks: “You better wear latex gloves with any hot peppers. Even a serrano can burn your skin.”
Salsa lovers, take note: “We grow a variety of pepper [called] Garden Salsa, bred just for making salsa,” Pusczek said. He also offers tomatoes, tomatillos and cilantro for would-be salsa chefs.
On Sept. 10 the GreenMarket is sponsoring a salsa festival from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. “We’re celebrating salsa with music and a special salsa tasting,” said market master Julia Feder. “Customers will vote for their favorite salsa. We’ll post the winning recipe at www.greenmarketstl.com after the festival.”
Pepper heads, take note: Salsas aren’t the only way to satisfy your quest for the good burn. Try Thai food for delicious heat. In fact, in a food marriage even Columbus couldn’t have anticipated, Thai Pizza Company features 12 kinds of pizzas. Owner Pat Prapaisilapa thought up peppery taste tweakers like larb pizza, red and green curry pizza, gra paow and kee maow pizzas and num prik ong pizza with Thai red spicy sauce. “I thought, ‘If Thai food is good with rice, will the flavors work on pizza dough?’”
If happy diners are any indication, the answer is yes. The Thai sauces, just a bit drier, are spread “not too much” on thin or thick crusts. Each Thai topping is cooked before it goes on the pizza. “Cooking blends the flavors, makes each taste more intense,” Prapaisilapa said. “Thai food is about flavors, about what you should taste first – sweet, salty, a little hot –
it varies with each dish.”
Prapaisilapa relies on older chefs to teach younger cooks the subtleties of Thai food in his restaurants. “We use a lot of ingredients, not much oil and lots of spices. Thai cooking is a lot of work,” Prapaisilapa said, “but everybody in Thailand is very happy. I think it’s the food.”
East or West, no matter how you like peppers best, the prime season to shop for them is September and early October. Enjoy the heat.
A pepper primer
To stuff:
No heat: green, gold, chocolate, purple or red bell
Mild to zippy: poblano
Moderately hot: Anaheim
Hot: hot banana, jalapeño
For salsas and sauces:
Moderately hot: jalapeño, Hungarian wax
Hotter: serrano, cayenne
Extremely hot: orange or red habañero, Tabasco, Thai, tepín
Smoked: chipotle (smoked jalapeño), pasilla (dried chilaca)
For jelly:
Hot, hot: habañero and jalapeño
Fruits to tone down the heat: peaches, pineapples, mangos, strawberries, raspberries
How to handle hot chile peppers: Very carefully!
1. Never approach a really hot pepper ungloved. Thin rubber or latex disposables work best to protect your skin.
2. Even if you disregard No. 1, never touch a gloved or ungloved hand to your eyes, nose or mouth after handling hot peppers. If you have learned this the hard way, immediately flush the burning area with water.
3. To lessen the heat in a pepper, wash it and cut it in half, then remove seeds and the placental ribs attached to the seeds. Use only the chile flesh in your dish.
4. Soaking a cut pepper in lightly salted water for 30 minutes or so will decrease the heat.
5. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling chiles.
6. If you take a bite of something too hot, don’t reach for the water glass. Grab a piece of bread or eat other starches to reduce the pain. Guzzling water will make it worse.
7. If you plan to dry chiles in the dehydrator or oven, make sure to open a window and turn on a fan to vent the fumes.
8. When you grind chiles in a spice mill or food processor, cover the top with a damp dishtowel to prevent debris from flying into your eyes, nose or mouth.
9. Keep ground chiles refrigerated to preserve their color and freshness.
10. Respect the power of the chile. These rules developed because some people mistakenly believed they were tougher than chiles.
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Jalapeño Salsa
Courtesy of Natures Way Garden’s Greg Pusczek
Yield: 1 pint
1 cup chopped, peeled and cored tomatoes
1 cup chopped jalapeño* peppers, seeds removed if desired
1/3 cup chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1 Tbsp. minced cilantro
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. ground cumin (or to taste)
1/3 cup cider vinegar (5 percent acidity)
• Combine all the ingredients in a large saucepan.
• Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes.
• Let it cool to room temperature before serving, or refrigerate it if you prefer to serve it chilled.
* For spicier taste, replace the jalapeños with serranos. For a less spicy taste, replace them with milder peppers.
Thai Chicken with Peanut Sauce Pizza
Courtesy of Thai Pizza Company’s Pat Prapaisilapa
Yield: 1 10-inch pizza
1/2 lb. chicken, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1 14-oz. can plus 1/2 cup coconut milk*, divided
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar, divided
32 oz. creamy peanut butter
1 or 2 Tbsp. red curry paste**
1 tsp. salt
1 cup ground peanuts
1 10-inch prepared pizza crust, thick or thin
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 or 2 Thai hot peppers, sliced in very thin shreds***
1/2 bell pepper sliced in thin strips (optional)
• Toss the chicken pieces, curry powder, 1/2 cup coconut milk and 2 tablespoons sugar in a bowl.
• Heat a bit of oil in a wok or skillet on high heat and stir-fry the chicken until it’s no longer pink but still tender. Set it aside.
• In a 3-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir together the can of coconut milk, peanut butter, red curry paste, 1 cup sugar and salt. Cook over low heat, stir frequently to blend the ingredients, for about 10 minutes. Do not boil.
• Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the ground peanuts.
• Adjust the seasonings as needed. The sweet taste should predominate (be the top flavor) with undertones of saltiness.
• Mix 1 cup of the stir-fried chicken pieces with 1 cup peanut sauce. Refrigerate the remainder for
another use.
• Spread the mixture to within 1/2 inch of the
pizza shell.
• Cover the pizza with shredded mozzarella.
• The pizza may be placed under a broiler about 6 inches from the heat source for 5 to 7 minutes until the cheese melts or heated in 375-degree oven for
7 minutes.
• Garnish the pizza with a pattern of shredded hot peppers or sliced sweet peppers in a pinwheel pattern.
* Coconut milk is available at Indian and Asian groceries.
** Red curry paste is a blend of red chiles, ghee, vinegar and seasonings.
*** Thai hot peppers are fiery hot – 60,000 Scoville heat units. Handle them carefully, wearing gloves. To tame the heat, scrape out the seeds and membrane. When you shred a hot pepper, cut fine strips lengthwise.
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