Hot peppers are a lot like people. They're confusing. They have a lot of nicknames and there's a heck of a lot of them. And, they can totally change their tastes under variable circumstances. Sometimes they're liked, and sometimes they're not. But, when treated with care and paired with the right partner, a pepper has the potential to be really good. The same could be said for many of us. With so many kinds of peppers, where do you start? That's part of the allure for many people. Chef Anthony Lamas at Seviche (and Seviche, A Latin Bistro) is currently intrigued with Peruvian peppers, which are called "ajis." Chef Lamas uses chiles (or ajis) like many of us would use salt and pepper. For Lamas, whose Latin restaurant features many items with chiles, it's not about preparing "spicy" foods. It's about finding the right combination of flavors. He uses poblano in a demi glaze over his filet mignon. "I didn't want to overpower it. I just wanted to give a hint of flavor," he said. Lamas described using a dried poblano (ancho). "If you use it dried, you have to add liquid to it. You can soak it in water, cut it up and it will give texture and hint of flavor," he explained. Lamas said that when you work with a dried chile it will be hotter than if you used a fresh one. When using fresh peppers, you can control the heat by de-seeding and de-veining them. If you're preparing homemade salsa, this is a great way to make the most of the pepper's flavor without getting it too hot to eat. Lamas suggests that when using a pepper that's a little more on the hot side, you can take it and poke holes in it and add it to a sauce or stew and let it cook for a while, tasting it periodically. Then, you can pull the pepper out when you've found the right flavor combination. "You can always add more spice, but it's hard to take it away," Lamas said. For chef J.J. Kingery at Wild Eggs on Dutchman's Lane, it's never too early to enjoy a good pepper. His restaurant serves breakfast, brunch and lunch and features several dishes with peppers. Kingery has taken classic breakfast dishes and spiced them up his own way. He too believes that peppers pack a lot more flavor than they do heat when used to complement the other spices, rather than overshadow them. One such dish is his "Kalamity Katie's Border Benedict," which features green chili cheddar corn cakes, topped with chorizo, poached eggs and queso fundido, pico de gallo, sour cream, green onion and fresh avocado. In addition, he said that his "Wild Western Omelet" features fresh jalapenos and serranos and the "Breakfast Burrito" includes poblanos and chipolte peppers. Kingery admits that he likes his food a lot spicier than most of his customers, but that he keeps the dishes pretty mild for the general public. However, he said that he and his kitchen crew often skip their morning coffee in lieu of hot peppers to prepare for the weekend rush. "We eat serranos marinated in lime juice and cilantro to get us going. It's like drinking 10 cups of coffee. The capsaicin in the peppers creates an endorphin rush and wakes you up," he explained. Local pepper expert Chuck Kavanaugh has 25 years experience growing more than 100 different kinds of chiles here in Louisville. Kavanaugh plants them in large pots and fertilizes them once a week. Through the years, he's grown peppers from seeds he's ordered from around the world. "I guess my favorite is the serrano. It's hot, but very fresh tasting and it works great in salsa. I also like the bright yellow ajis, particularly the aji serranito, aji limon and aji amarillo because they're all very hot and fruity," he said. Kavanaugh also enjoys Thai hots, golden cayennes and poblanos, in addition to many very hot Indian chiles. He cooks with his chiles all year long. "One of my favorite ways of preserving peppers besides drying them is to seed several varieties, grind them up in a food processor like you would a pesto, add a little lime juice so that it's wet enough to freeze, then pour them in ice cube trays. Then, when you're cooking in the winter, you can take them out and add them to a soup, stir fry, pasta or stew," he explained. How Hot is Too Hot? The level of hotness in popular peppers is measured most accurately by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). But the Scoville Heat Scale is also popular. The higher the number, the higher the heat. A bell pepper has a rating of zero Scoville units, because there is no heat. However, the habanero rates at 300,000 Scoville units. According to the Scoville Scale, other commonly eaten peppers are rated as follows: Serrano - 10,000-23,000 Jalapeno - 2,500-8,000 Poblano - 1,000-1,500 Anaheim - 500-2,500 Pepperocini - 100-500 Milk and sugar are said to help calm a burning mouth that has entertained too much spice. Starchy foods and cold beer or wine help dissolve the heat-producing compound as well. In addition to the trendy appeal of hot peppers, they also have nutritional value. They're good sources of potassium, folic acid, and vitamin E and are high in vitamins A and C. Eating as few as two hot peppers a day will help the body burn 25 percent more calories than normal. Recommended websites for information on growing peppers: pepperjoe.com peppergal.com totallytomato.com tomatogrowers.com Recipe for Quick 'Salsa Fresca' According to Kavanaugh, this is an ideal quick salsa recipe that's easy to make. With four simple ingredients, a little bit of chopping and no rule for measuring, Kavanaugh recommends preparing this "Salsa Fresca" recipe on any summer evening. Hot Chiles (Kavanaugh recommends serranos) Tomatoes Fresh White Onions Fresh Cilantro When handling and preparing peppers it's recommended to wear gloves and wash cutting boards and utensils afterwards.
A pepper isn't always the same pepper. Like many other vegetables, it can be sautéed, pickled, baked and pureed, among other things. However, when you take a pepper from its original state, you can transform its personality as well as its name. For example, a jalapeno when smoked in adobo and onion and garlic turns into a chipolte, which is much hotter than its original flavor profile. If you're using a jalapeno, which is about a 4 on a scale from 1-10, and you smoke that jalapeno, it goes up to about a 5 or 6 as a chipolte. When a poblano is dried, it's called an ancho. It's somewhat similar to how a grape would turn into a raisin and get sweeter. With more than 200 varieties of peppers, there are endless possibilities of how you can transform them. 
Habanernos, touted as the hottest of the hot of hot peppers, are attractive to many people, much like the same way a Truth or Dare game is. You know you shouldn't do it, but there's that swelling ego inside you that feels a need to prove something. If you do decide to take the dare, it's highly advised to wear plastic gloves when handling a habanero. Some people make a puree out of them and freeze it to use for seasoning dishes in the future, taking only small pinches for a rub or marinade with garlic and olive oil.
Cayenne - 30,000-50,000 units
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