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supermarket produce clerks go by the shipper’s label, and often even those are incorrect. You have
to know what you are looking for. Buying dried chilies is easier because the labels on packages tend
to be more often correct.
It doesn't make it any easier that a fresh chili may have a different name than when dried.
The color of the chili may change its name, too. In other words, a single chili variety may have four
different names, fresh, dried, red and green. But there's more. Many of the same chilies have
different names in different regions. An ancho chili in New Mexico is called a pasilla in California
and a pisado in Texas. Look at the table below for help in identifying more common chilies.
All chili and bell pepper plants produce green-colored fruits, sometimes yellow. The green
pigment chlorophyll provides the green color in a mature pepper while carotenoid pigment
produces the yellow. All chili and bell peppers continue to ripen as long as the grower leaves them
on the plant. While ripening, the green chlorophyll pigments change to yellow carotenoid,
eventually turning the color to a bright red. Some peppers retain the chlorophyll while also
developing carotenoids pigments, then we have brownish-colored chilies. Some varieties are such
gorgeous chocolate-brown that you are real tempted to take a big bite out of them. Resist
temptation!
Sugar content increases significantly during ripening. Chilies and peppers have far more
flavor in the fully mature stage, like tomatoes. They are actually quite sweet but remember, they are
fruits. But in the red-ripe stage they have a short shelflife, just like tomatoes, and grocers don't like
to carry them.
Ground chili and chili powder
Ground chili and chili powder—two types of chili-related powders on the spice shelf are
confusing but it is important that you keep the distinction in mind. It is the name that causes this
confusion. Chili powder is a commercial spice mix of ground chili, cumin, oregano, garlic powder,
sometimes salt and other ingredients. Chili or ground chili or powdered chili, on the other hand is
just pure finely ground chili, like paprika, with no other added spices. They make it from dried ripe
red chilies, either from chile seco, ancho or a blend of the two.
TASTINGS The birth of chili powder
A Texan named Willie Gebhardt was first to produce commercial chili powder in
1
892. He obviously came up with a good blend, since Gebhardt chili powder mix is
still on the shelves more than 100 years later. Now it has many other neighbors to
choose from, some good, some bad, but none can match what you can make yourself
with a good recipe and from fresh-ground (and preferably fresh-roasted) spices.
Paprika is the powdered form of dried red paprika peppers that growers specifically raise for
that purpose. (Bell pepper and paprika pepper are very close relatives.) It has a unique flavor thanks
to the specific variety of the pepper, the climate and the process of making the powder. The paprika
pepper originally was pungent. Processing included removing the inside membranes by hand that
contain all of the pungent chemical, then drying and grinding what was left into a fine powder. In
1945 a Hungarian agricultural researcher, Ernö Obermayer, developed a sweet paprika pepper after
25 years of selective breeding in which the veins were not pungent. This allowed machine
processing of the ripe peppers because, even if some of the insides end up ground up with the outer
shell, it doesn't increase the heat of the powder.
play © erdosh 143
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