Of Cabbages and Cream

From: Ryan

Sent: 10:55
To: Richard
Subject: Not hot chilli

Good morning good sir,

How was your weekend? Good times? I cooked chilli last night and it was disappointingly not spicy, despite using 4 hot chillies and plenty of “hot” chilli powder. I am pretty sure I still have taste buds, but it just was not spicy.. any ideas why?! It had potatoes and beans in as well as the standard chilli con carne stuff.

Eggs’n’taters.

Ryan


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From: Richard
Sent: 11:48
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: Cabbages and Cream

I cooked one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten on Saturday: cabbage pasta! It was a recipe from my river café book and was basically cavolo nero, cream and garlic, but transformed through technique into one of the most delicious things ever. It did take over an hour and involve four separate pans and the Magimixthough, so I would have been disappointed if it had been anything less than stunning. If you’re interested in trying it the recipe is here (I cut the quantities down to 1 third for the sauce which I found ample for 250g of spaghetti – the pasta amount they recommend if for starter portions with a sauce to pasta ratio that would be inedibly rich as a main course). I think kale would be almost indistinguishable from cavolo nero and much more readily available, and the recipe calls for 2 to 3 chillis rather than 23.

Not as posh as the Savoy.

Perhaps 23 chillies would have been more suitable for your chilli last night. I’ve suffered at the hands of the mysterious non-hot chilli phenomenon before. It’s weird. I’ll have packed a chilli with up to 10 chillies and still it’ll end up as meek and timid as a new born bush-baby. I think a lot of it is down to the unpredictability of the heat contained within individual chillies (I’ve also had the opposite, when a pasta sauce, for example, will be insanely fiery after just 1 chilli). I also suspect that an over long cooking time can temper the heat of an initially respectable chilli, and the inclusion of fire extinguishing starchy elements (like your potatoes and beans) can also have an emasculating effect. The only answer is to prepare some Liquid Fire while the chilli is cooking by stewing at least 10 dried birds eyes in a little water and oil. Then, each diner can tailor their chilli’s power to their own palette by adding a teaspoon at a time of the Fire to their portion.