Matt Bray, Author at PepperScale

Explosive Ember Pepper Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

What are Explosive Ember peppers? Ornamental peppers come in many colors, often brightening up landscaping like Christmas lights, but few have the sense of drama of the Explosive Ember pepper. It’s a bold look – pods in shades of jewel-tone purple and red against dark …

Huancaina Sauce

by Matt Bray

A delicious Peruvian cheese sauce…

Peruvian huancaina sauce is a must for the delicious traditional potato dish papas a la huancaina. But this mix of queso fresco, sunny aji amarillo peppers, and onions has more culinary options that that. Use it as a veggie dip, as a side to salsa for Mexican and Peruvian meals, or pour it over cooked veggies as you would any cheese sauce.

Aji amarillo peppers provide a cayenne pepper level heat and a tropical-sweet undertone to the sauce. It’s a unique, summery taste making for one terrific alternative to typical (and often boring) cheese sauces.

Chinese 5-Color Pepper: Unexpected Shades

by Matt Bray

A beauty that brings in shades of purple and cream…

Scoville heat units (SHU): 30,000 – 50,000
Jalapeño reference point: 4 to 20 times hotter
Origin: China
Products and seeds: Chinese 5-color pepper on Amazon

With its many hues and dark foliage, the Chinese 5-color pepper is a real beauty in the garden. It’s multi-colored, like the aurora pepper or Bolivian rainbow, but what makes it stand out from the pack is the unexpected shades it takes. Layers of purple and cream are in play, along with the more familiar yellows, oranges, and reds. Best of all, the Chinese 5-color pepper, even with its significant medium heat, delivers in the taste department, too – more than most other ornamental peppers – so it’s a great fit for edible landscaping projects.

Minorcan Mike’s Datil Pepper Sauce Review

by Matt Bray

Sweetness is the datil pepper default. The pepper is fruity on its own, and nearly every datil pepper sauce made leans into it, so “sweet heat” (or “swicy“) tells you next to nothing about which bottle is worth buying. With datil sauces the real question …

Harissa Tomato Sauce

by Matt Bray

Spiced bite…

Harissa tomato sauce is more than spicy ketchup. There’s a real robust spice here – a mix of cumin, coriander, and caraway provide an earthy and fresh zing. We use sambal oelek as a base for the sauce instead of going with freshly ground dried chilies like a a typical homemade harissa. It provides the needed tomato sauce base while packing plenty of heat. You can pick up sambal oelek in most grocery stores or online.

Use harissa tomato sauce as a dipper – it’s delicious with fresh or toasted pita, fried foods (like mozzarella sticks), and French fries. It’s also an interesting option as a pasta sauce for those that enjoy spicier fair.

Aurora Pepper Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

by Matt Bray

What are aurora peppers? With its rounded bulb-like shape and its many colors, the aurora pepper is a real crowd-pleaser in the garden. It brightens a space – like its name suggests – with shades of green, purple, yellow, orange, and red all on the …

Peruvian Peppers Guide: Ajis And More

by Matt Bray

Peru is the origin of some of the most delicious chili peppers on the pepper scale, though none are popular staples outside of their native land. In Peru, though, some of these chilies share condiment space right beside those salt and pepper staples. It’s a culture that loves its heat – and peppers with a lot of nuance behind the spice. Let’s review the most popular Peruvian peppers. You can learn even more by clicking through to the profile of any of the peppers below.

Carmen Pepper Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

by Matt Bray

What are Carmen peppers? The Carmen pepper is the epitome of why you shouldn’t judge a pepper by its shape. It looks like a jumbo hot pepper – with its curved horn-like shape and tapering body. But underneath these hot looks, there’s no heat to …

California Wonder Pepper Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

by Matt Bray

What are California Wonder peppers? You’ve likely eaten more than a few California Wonder peppers in your time – they are a garden standard for bell peppers and the seeds are common in gardening centers and gardening websites. As sweet peppers, these thick-walled beauties carry …

7 Pot Barrackpore Guide: Heat, Flavor, Uses

by Matt Bray

What are 7 Pot Barrackpore peppers? Coming in bigger and a little hotter than a traditional Trinidad 7 Pot pepper, the 7 Pot Barrackpore sits prevalently among the hottest peppers of the world. Though in terms of flavor, the Barrackpore variety tends towards a little …