Bring on the Heat.....!!!!

Once again we harvest a bunch of Jalapeños. This little plant of our is thriving so well it produces them little firecrackers like crazy.

As a request i am trying to explain how we pick our ready Jalapeños and what we use them for.

I guess some of our friends are having a hard time finding really good ones in Grocery Stores, that they are either lacking in heat it may just as well be a bell pepper, or so hot a speck will create a raging inferno in your mouth.

Here’s a quick tip for choosing Jalapeños that can help you decide which ones to pick. Jalapeño chilies progressively get hotter the older they get, eventually turning bright red. As they age, they develop white lines and flecks, like stretch marks running in the direction of the length of the pepper. The smoother the pepper, the younger, and milder it is. The more white lines, the older and hotter. Red jalapeños can be pretty hot, if they have a lot of striations, but they are also sweeter.

If you are trying to avoid the hottest jalapeños (say for a stuffed jalapeno dish like we made), pick the chilies without any striations. If you are looking for heat, find a red or green one with plenty of white stretch marks.

Note that this is just a guideline. There is still plenty of variation among individual peppers. You can find hotter-than-Hades peppers without any white lines. But your chances of picking a mild one are better if you go for smooth. Or if you are looking for heat, you will more likely find that in a pepper with lots of lines.