Habanero peppers?

[amorey]

I planted a habanero pepper plant this year, just for fun. Two of my other, milder, pepper plants died, and my jalapeno has like 2 peppers on it, but I’ve got a bumper crop of habaneros. I do like spicy food, but I haven’t been brave enough to try one and see just how spicy they are. What can I do with these? Is there anything I can do to tone down the spice?

[sublime311]

Yikes! According to this pepper fact website (http://www.thescarms.com/hotstuff/pepperfacts.htm#Scoville%20Units), "Habaneros are the hottest chile peppers and rate around 200,000 - 300,000 Scoville Units." :eek:

Also, here's this from Cooks Thesaurus (http://www.foodsubs.com/Chiledry.html):

General Notes:

~Smaller peppers are usually hotter than larger peppers.

~Peppers often become hotter as they ripen, and hotter still when they're dried. Dried peppers tend to have a richer, more concentrated flavor.

~To tone down the heat of a pepper, cut it open and remove the seeds and the white ribs.

~When working with peppers, wear rubber gloves or, in a pinch, coat your hands with vegetable oil. Wash your hands carefully afterwards.

~Chiles don't freeze well.

[elladee]

Oooohhhh habaneros, DH's favorite pepper! Mine did unbelievably this year, too, though I don't quite have any ripe ones yet.

ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES!!! I didn't one time and thought I was doing to die.

In addition to scraping the seeds and white membrane out, you also can scrape along the flesh of the pepper to reduce heat. I usually don't bother, though.

As for what you can do with the pepper... lots. They're just not real good for eating raw. :p I cut them up and put them in things like spaghetti sauce, soup, salsa, etc.

Cooking them usually tones down the heat as well. Sometimes I add them to the spaghetti sauce before I heat it up, sometimes I only add it to DH's plate. He says it's much hotter when I just throw the raw cut up pepper on his plate.

A little goes along way. I use a whole pepper for a meal, but you might want to start out with just a portion and increase if you feel you need to.