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Tips & tricks
Little secrets to tame the heat without dying trying.
Handling the heat
Wear gloves with the hottest ones
Capsaicin clings to your skin and later finds your eyes. From habaneros up, use kitchen gloves.
The fire lives in the veins
Capsaicin gathers in the white veins that hold the seeds, not in the flesh. Take them out and you lower the heat without losing the chile flavour.
It dissolves in fat, not water
Fry the chile in oil and the heat spreads through the whole dish; drop it into a watery broth and it stays in patches. Choose depending on the effect you want.
Putting out the fire
Milk, not water
The casein in dairy washes capsaicin away; water just spreads it. A glass of milk or a yogurt puts the fire out.
A spoonful of sugar
If a dish has run away from you, a little sugar, honey or something sweet calms the blaze and rebalances the bite.
Bread, rice or potato to the rescue
When your mouth is on fire, a bite of something starchy mops up better than drinking water, which just spreads the flames.
Storing & swapping
Freeze your leftover chiles
Whole and bagged, they keep for months in the freezer without losing heat. Ready whenever you need them.
Dry them and they last a year
Ripe chiles dry in the air, hung in a string or in a low oven. Dried, they concentrate flavour and keep for months, whole or ground.
No chile? Swap it
Use the Scoville scale as your guide: swap a chile for one of similar heat and adjust the amount. A serrano for a jalapeno, for example, bites a little harder.
Grow your own
Grow your favourite variety at home
A chile needs no vegetable garden: a sunny pot on the windowsill is enough. From seedling to fruit it takes patience, but few things taste better than a chile you raised yourself.
The chile bonsai is a real thing
The chile plant is a perennial and can live for years. With pruning and a small pot you can train it like a bonsai (they call it bonchi): decorative, alive and edible.
The leaves are edible too
Chile leaves, a little bitter and milder than the fruit, are eaten as greens: in Filipino tinola soup, in Korean kimchi, or cooked Japanese tsukudani style. Do not bin the whole plant.
Your spicy pantry
Build your spicy shelf
Gather your dried chiles, spices and sauces on a shelf in plain sight. Starting a hot sauce collection is dangerous: it never stops at one, but your kitchen will thank you.
Make your own chile oil
Warm some oil and infuse it with dried chile and garlic (Chinese spicy garlic oil is the benchmark). One jar gives you months of spark to dress, dip bread or finish a dish.
Hot honey for everything
Warm honey with chile flakes and let it infuse: it works just as well over pizza, an aged cheese or fried chicken. Sweet and fire in the same drizzle.