Chili Peppers...When, Where, and Why to use them

There are hundreds of types of chili peppers, with about ten times as many uses.
For my recipes, I will focus and use about 10 varieties both raw and dried.Let start with the two most common to Tex-Mex cooking, the Jalepeno and Serrano peppers.




Jalepenos and Serranos are the work horses of Texas cooking. Used in more BBQ, Southern Fried and Tex-Mex cooking than any other chilis. We even have the tradition of eating raw serranos with our fried fish and many of the fish shops put raw srranos in the to go bag along with the tarter sauce and lemon wedges. Pickled Jalepenos are served with a big burger and fried chicken orders.





One of the smallest and Hottest chili is the chili Petine. Petines grow on a little bush which can grow to the size of a big Rose bush. Lot of the bushes are found out in the country by them selves. the chiili is eaten by birds. The chili like most chilis start out green and turn red.






The Chipotle Pepper is a smoked-dried Jalepeno. Its sold in a tin with an adobo sauce. (Adobo is a blend of chilis, vinegar, and spices).Whole Chipotles are added to stews.




Chili Pasilla


Chili Ancho

Chili Pasilla and Ancho are dried chillis used for many sauces, marinades, moles.
Traditional Enchilada sauces are made from pasilla nad ancho chilis. The Meat that goes into a pork meat tamale are pasilla and ancho.


Chili de Arbol is used to make a red chilli sauce that is used at table side. Ground coarsely is used as red pepper flake. Blended with vinegar for meat marinades.

So next time your at the market, see how many your market carries. Take a side trip to the dried spices. See if your market has a Latin section. In the up comming recipes, I will give alternatives.

Next blog will be on Spices and veggies we will use.
Until next time
SAguy