Weapons grade chilli oil

UPDATE: Turns out these are Scotch Bonnets, up to 400,000 Scoville units in terms of capsaicin concentration. I’ve now chopped, deseeded and blanched half a pound of them to freeze and pickle. I wore rubber gloves, a facemask and goggles while I did so, but the house is now full of their volatiles and neither Mrs Sciencebase nor myself can stop coughing and sneezing. I just touched my face with a formerly gloved finger that I thought I’d washed thoroughly and the skin there is sizzling gently…why do we use these weapons on mass destruction in food again, remind me? UPDATE: I was talking chillis in the pub last night with biochemist and brewer friend Mark. He reckons the best thing to do is blend them up with some salt and white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, seeds and all, to make a useful drizzle to add a bit of fire to anything you could as and when. He also warned against adding anything fresh and rottable, such as freshly plucked chillis to oil to make a chilli oil, for instance, as there is a significant risk of botulism with such homemade products unless you add the requisite preservatives that defeat Clostridium botulinum. Apparently, the chilli peppers I have grown are habanero (10 to 100 times hotter than a jalapeno on the Scoville scale). I chopped into scrambled eggs for lunch and almost couldn’t breathe while they were frying…my stomach is still complaining three hours later, my nose is running, and my lips feel like I’ve been...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs