Spice Up Your Life!

Flavor is one of the most important things when preparing a dish. With the popularity of authentic Mexican, Latin American, and Indian cuisine on the rise over the highly Americanized fast food chains, it's time that we've had a introduction to one of the staples of their region's cooking: the pepper. When people think of peppers, they usually think 'spicy' and not much else. That's just one dimension to their flavor. It's true that the capsaicin (the compound that gives chile peppers their heat) 'locks on' to your taste buds and can overwhelm the palate. Still, behind the heat is a more complex taste. Besides its culinary contribution, the pepper offers nutritional and medicinal uses that may surprise you.

Bringing the Heat
There's actually a scale that's used to rank the heat level of all pepper varieties called the Scoville scale. using measures of 100, the scales ranges form 0 (the non-spicy bell pepper) up to 16 million (pure capsaicin). The units are called Scoville Heat Units, or SHU, for short. Here are some of the most commonly used peppers ranked by this scale:

Habanero: This is the hottest of the most commonly known peppers. Its color is usually orange, yellow, or red, and it has a burning heat. It's also used to make the hottest of hot sauces and salsas.

Serrano: Proof that big things come in small packages, this pepper packs a punch with its piercingly hot flavor. Its color goes from green to red to yellow, as it ages. Serranos are well suited to salsas and pico de gallo.

Jalapeno: This is the chile pepper most Americans know best. Its dark green and on the smaller side, shaped like a bullet. If you have a moderate tolerance for heat, you can probably handle this one. This is a very versatile pepper, and is used in a great variety of dishes, from salsas to marinades to casseroles. Dried versions of this pepper are called chipotles.

Poblano: These peppers are larger than most. They are usually used in their dark green stage, and the darker color indicates a richer flavor. Poblanos have a mild spiciness with thick flesh that makes it ideal for stuffing. They're ideal for roasting, which brings out the pepper's earthy flavor. When dried, they are called anchos and are typically used in mole sauces.

Bell Pepper: Probably the most recognizable pepper on this list, the bell pepper comes in a few varieties. Green bells are harvested before they've fully ripened on the plant and so have a bitterer flavor, whereas orange and yellow bells have a noticeably fruitier flavor. The red bell, as the most mature of the bells, is the sweetest. Paprika is prepared from the red bell pepper. The bell pepper has no heat level, and registers  a 0 on the Scoville scale.


Health Benefits:

• All peppers contain significant amounts of Vitamin C, but the hottest chile peppers have the most. The hotter peppers are also shown to help lower cholesterol, and have anti-inflammatory properties.
• Not surprisingly, chiles are often used to fight colds as they're adept at clearing sinus congestion.
• Peppers are also rich sources of fiber, Vitamin A, and Vitamin K.
• The red bell pepper is the most nutritious of the colors, having 11 times more beta-carotene than the green ones, and 1 1/2 times more Vitamin C! The beta-carotene helps promote healthy skin and vision.
• Peppers also have high levels of folate and Vitamin B6, both of which help guard against heart disease. 

Things to Know:

• It's always advisable to wear gloves when handling chiles, as the capsaicin can sometimes hang onto skin for days, leading to unfortunate accidents.
• Removing the seeds and interior ribs or membrane helps reduce the heat in a pepper, and bring out its underlying fruitier flavor.
• It's no coincidence that the peppers get smaller, the farther up the Scoville scale they go. The smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.