Some like it hot

Chillies aren’t just added to food for their hotness – some varieties can also give a delicious flavour to both savoury and sweet dishes. Cooking Coach Terry Farris profiles some of the most popular peppers

From a tingle on the tongue to a full-blown explosion on the palate, chillies have been adding heat and flavour to dishes all over the world for centuries. Native to the Americas, primarily Mexico, they probably made their way to Europe and Asia with Christopher Columbus and quickly found acceptance in recipes from Italy to India.

Chillies come in dozens of varieties , colours, shapes and sizes, and their heat can range from mild to dangerously hot. The hotness of a chilli is expressed in Scoville Heat Units, named after the American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville. In 1912, he devised a scientific test to measure just how hot chillies could be. On the Scoville scale, a bell pepper (capsicum) scores 0, a jalapeño pepper around 3,000 and a habañero a scorching 300,000.

Hot flush
The heat comes from capsaicin (pronounced cap-SAY-a-sin), a substance that produces endorphins in the brain – this is why some chemists think eating chillies can seem addictive, a bit like chocolate. Capsaicin is odourless and flavourless, but is a natural irritant and can cause severe pain to skin and tender parts of the body (hence its use in anti-mugging sprays).

Pure capsaicin comes in at a whopping 16 million Scovilles, although it’s distributed throughout a chilli in varying concentrations: the whitish ribs contain the most (about 80 per cent capsaicin), the seeds are next, and, last but not least, the flesh and skin. So if you want less heat, strip out the ribs and seeds.

Burn, baby, burn
Capsaicin isn’t very soluble, which means that if you’ve just burnt your mouth on a hot chilli, drinking water won’t help. You’re better off drinking milk, or eating ice-cream, as these dairy products contain casein, a protein that can break down the capsaicin oils. However, as hardened chilli or curry fans know, it’s possible to build up a resistance to capsaicin, so the more you eat, the more tolerant you become and the hotter your food can be.

Cook’s tip: I have it on good authority that, if you’ve been chopping chillies, a mixture of 1 part bleach to 5 parts water will wash chilli residue off your fingers. Alternatively, wear rubber gloves when cutting chillies – or to avoid all contact, use a food processor or hand-held blender.

One chilli you probably won’t be getting used to is the newly-discovered Naga Jolokia pepper from Assam in northern India. Until recently, the Guinness Book of Records listed the Red Savina Habañero as the hottest chilli in world, with a Scoville rating of 577,000. But this new contender claims the title with a flesh-burning score of 855,000, almost 50 per cent hotter. Typically, the military is investigating Naga Jolokia as a tear gas weapon.

Over the page: How to buy chillies, and the pepper A–Z