Weapons grade chilli dressing

UPDATE: I blitzed them in the food processor today and converted the jar of pickled chillis into a lethal cocktail for drizzling into curries and marinades etc. Thought I had better put a hazmat type sign on the bottle. 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 cook, 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 Scotch Bonnet (1000s times hotter than a jalapeno on the Scovi...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs