Red hot chilli peppers

There’s a variety of peppers available in the market, so why are we still hooked on to Kashmiri chillis for flavour and colour?

I tried them all and loved them. The sampling technique worked because, inevitably, I included the new variety of chillis in my next order. I asked Achintya Anand of Krishicress where he was getting all the chillis from. He said that there was suddenly a spurt of demand from subscribers to his service who wanted the sort of chillis you did not normally get at your subziwalla.

Karan Anand (no relation, I think, to the Krishicress Anand), whose Anata keeps my kitchen full of goodies, said that new suppliers had come on line, providing a mixture of traditional Indian chillis along with varieties that were more famous abroad.

Karan had slipped a packet of superhot Habaneros into my basket once and we had been sold on them. My wife discovered that a single Habanero added to the pan changed the flavour profile of a dish, adding not just heat but depth. Similarly, Achintya Anand had sent me a pepper I had never heard of (he called it a Palermo Pepper) that had little heat but lots of flavour and worked well with Spanish and Italian food.

Karan said that while the Habanero-type segment of the market was growing, people were also ordering local varieties like the chillis of Guntur. His customers had worked out, he said, that different chillis imparted different flavours to the food.

I called Pritha again. Was she right to accuse chefs of being stuck on just one chilli when my online greengrocers were actually offering more chilli varieties than had ever been available before?

Yes, she insisted. At the Royal Bengal kitchen, she said, she had been happy and comfortable because ITC chefs were not stuck on a single chilli but gave each local variety its due. At other restaurants and hotels where she had cooked or consulted, she said, the dominance of Kashmiri chilli powder was complete.

“WE [INDIANS] HAVE AN ASTONISHINGLY COMPLEX CUISINE. OUR PALATES HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY YEARS OF EATING SPICE, SO WE CAN DETECT THE DIFFERENCE” –AKSHAY BECTOR, MD, CREMICA

SPICE IT UP

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