Re: [CH] Re: Heat
Brent Thompson (brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com)
Fri, 07 Sep 2001 10:13:36 -0700
> I always have to have some fresh Serranos around. I cook a lot of Eastern
> Indian food where they go into nearly every dish. As far as Cayenne goes, I
> can't even imagine cooking without it ....
I like serranos very much too, but fyi there are no serranos in India, so
in India they use green cayennes for green chile input and red cayennes for
red chile input, and imho this original flavor is the best for Indian food.
Of course, green serranos are not a very big difference in flavor from
cayennes, and they don't ruin the flavor of Indian food (unlike habaneros,
which mostly should be confined to African and Caribbean preparations, e.g.
jerk, where they really shine and should definitely not be used in Indian
food), so I can understand why you might use serranos instead of cayennes
if you cannot get fresh green cayennes during winter.
We solve this problem by freezing a bunch of fresh green cayennes every
fall, enough to last until next year's crop begins to be available. The
flavor of the fresh green chiles, not the texture, is what is important in
almost all Indian preparations, so the frozen cayennes work fine.
--- Brent