The Scoville scale rates chili heat from zero to the millions. Here’s how Wilbur Scoville’s 1912 test worked, how HPLC replaced it, a full heat table from bell pepper to Pepper X, and what the number still cannot tell you.
Canned jalapeños and fresh jalapeños are both used liberally in many Latin and Tex-Mex recipes. Each brings different qualities to a dish that you should keep in mind when choosing between them. How do they differ? Let’s compare the two. How do canned jalapeños differ from …
Most people file the cayenne as a hotter jalapeño, and that is the one thing it is not. These two sit at opposite ends of medium heat, one nearly mild and one nearly hot, but the heat gap is the easy part. The harder part …
By many, chili paste and chili sauce are considered the same product. There are many variations of each from all over the world, so you will often see the same product described as both paste and sauce depending on the source. And it’s not a …
Gochugaru is a form of dried chili that you will often see in Korean cuisine. It is what gives kimchi its red color. Red pepper flakes are the same product that is sometimes known as crushed red pepper. You might see red pepper flakes/crushed red …
Terms like cultivar, variety, and hybrid are common terms when describing chili pepper plants. And they are also used incorrectly much of the time. They are often used interchangeably, even though the words have quite different definitions. Let’s compare the three to get a better understanding …
The Apollo pepper is a newer super-hot pepper gaining quick notoriety for its extreme heat. The ghost pepper has been famous in the US and Europe for about two decades now for its wicked spiciness and fun name. Which of these chilies is hotter? How …
A staple spice in Korean cooking, gochugaru consists entirely of dried chili peppers that have been deseeded. Gochu translates to chili pepper and garu means powder so the spice’s name literally means chili powder. The best hot peppers for gochugaru are those that have been …
Black pepper and red pepper are both fundamental spices in food cultures all over the world. Black pepper comes from the Kerala region in Southern India while red pepper comes from Central America. While both of these spices play similar roles — they provide heat …
Chile de arbol and cayenne peppers share some characteristics but aren’t exactly alike. How can you tell them apart? Which is hotter? Which will you be able to find more easily? Let’s compare. Where did each pepper originate? The chile de arbol is believed to …
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