Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Chilli along with all the trcipes employing Chilli presented on this site, with 1999 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Chilli recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Chilli as a major wild food ingredient.

Chillis (also known as Chili, Chilé and Ají) are the fruit of the Capsicum members of the Solanaceae (deadly nightshade) family. The name itself is derived from Nahuatl (Aztec) language via the Spanish chilé. They all originate in the Americas, where they have been cultivated for at least 7500 yeras, though because of their culinary uses they are now grown all over the world. Christopher Columbus encountered them on his first voyage to the Carribean in 1492 and though he did not bring any back on that voyage (they were taken to Spain on his second voyage) he does wirte of a 'pepper' that the natives called Ají which was better in taste and nature that ordinary peppers. Wanting to prove that he had opened a new easterly route to the Indies Columbus was keen to associate Ají with Asian 'pepper'. From Mexico, at the time the Spanish colony that controlled commerce with Asia, chilli peppers spread rapidly into the Philippines and then to India, China, Korea and Japan with the aid of European sailors. The new spice was quickly incorporated into the local cuisines. It seems to have entered India via the Portugese colony of Goa before journeying northwards through Central Asia and Turkey, to Hungary, where it became the national spice in the form of paprika (central image, left).



Numerous cultivars of the Capsicum plant exist and these range from Capsicum annuum, which includes many common varieties such as bell peppers, paprika, jalapeños, and the chiltepin; Capsicum frutescens, which includes the cayenne and tabasco peppers; Capsicum chinense, which includes the hottest peppers such as habañeros and Scotch bonnets; Capsicum pubescens, which includes the South American rocoto peppers and Capsicum baccatum, which includes the South American ají peppers.



Chilli peppers add both flavour and 'heat' to a dish. The heat being produced by capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) and several related chemicals, collectively called capsaicinoids. These are hydrophobic (water-hating) chemicals and this is why they tend to bury themselves into the surfaces of the palate and the mouth causing irritation (the burning sensation; indeed the chemical is produced by the plants to deter predation by animals). This is also why drinking water is ineffective as a way of eliminating the burning sensation. The capsaicinoids do not dissolve in water and are simply spread by it. However, foods rich in fat such as milk and yoghurt will eliminate the chemical (this is why yoghurt is served with many Indian dishes).



The 'heat' of foods is measured by special units, called Scoville units. Bell peppers rank at zero Scoville units, jalapeños at 3,000–6,000 Scoville units, and habaneros at 300,000 Scoville units. The current official Guinness Book of Records record for the highest Scoville rating for a chilli pepper goes to the Red Savina Habanero, measuring 577,000 units. Reports of a hotter pepper have circulated for many years, though and a recent report was made of a pepper from India called the Naga Jolokia measuring at 855,000 Scoville units but the validity of this claim is disputed. However, in April 2006 a report of the Naga Dorset pepper, a variety of the Naga Jolokia pepper cultivated exclusively by the Peppers by Post company in Dorset, England who claimed their pepper measured 923,000 SHU [note that pure capsaicin rates at 15,000,000 Scoville units]. Within the Chilli fruit itself, it is the stem end of the pod that contains the glands that produce the capsaicin, which then flows down through the pod. Removing the seeds and inner membranes is thus effective at reducing the heat of a pod.



Korean, Indian, Indonesian, Szechuan and Thai cuisines are particularly associated with the chilli pepper, although the plant was unknown in Asia until Europeans introduced it there. Dried red chilli (red, bottom) is a common ingredient in many Indian dishes and is also used, along with cumin and other spices to create Chilli Con Carne.



They probably became an essential component of the Mesoamerican diet (which relied on maize and beans as a staple) as the high vitamin C content of red peppers increase the uptake of non-haeme iron in diets containing little or no meat.