Pimenta de Cheiro - A Problem of Identification

Of all the essential ingredients in the Brazilian larder, one of the most difficult to pin down is the chili pepper. What exactly is this chili pepper I have in my hand, or how do I find the type of chili called for in this recipe or that recipe? These are questions that are frustruating if not impossible to answer.

There are several reasons for all this confusion. The main one is that the botanical genus Capsicum, to which all chili peppers belong, is extraordinary in its profusion. There are yellow peppers, there are red ones, green and purple too. There are round peppers, long skinny ones, and thick fat ones. There are peppers that burst with flavor and aroma, and others that only add heat to a dish. At times it seems like all they have in common in their name.

A typical example is a chili pepper called pimenta de cheiro. The name means "aromatic pepper" and this chili is one of the most commonly used chilis in traditional Brazilian cuisine, particularly in Brazil's north and northeast regions. Many recipes from Bahia, from Ceará or from the jungles of the Amazon call for pimenta de cheiro. So, assuming you are in Brazil and want to find some pimenta de cheiro for a recipe you're going to try out - how do you find it in the market?

Photos don't help much. If you search Google Images forpimenta de cheiro you'll see photos of many different peppers that don't seem to have much in common. A web search will lead you to sites that provide helpful instructions on identifying pimenta de cheiro like this one:

Shape can be long, round, triangular, bell-shaped or rectangular. The mature fruits vary in color from creamy yellow to bright yellow, from orange to salmon, or from red to even black when fully mature. Some are sweet, some are slightly hot and some are very hot. It's aroma is strong...

So that's easy, right? Just look for a pepper that's yellow, rectangular and sweet. Or one that's black, round and very hot. Or red, bell-shaped and slightly hot. In fact, the only characteristic that is common to all these varieties is the aroma. I guess that's why it's called the aromatic chili pepper.

Two more problems cloud the picture even further. A chili that's called pimenta de cheiro in one spot in Brazil might have another name just 20 miles down the road. That doesn't make one's task easier. In fact, the whole thing is so confusing that even botanists can't agree on what a pimenta de cheiro is, so even if you were able to get the DNA from your pepper you couldn't be sure it was a pimenta de cheiro. Some botanists assign the common name pimenta de cheiro to varieties of the species Capsicum annuum while others think that it's actually Capsicum frutescens that deserves the moniker.

Our advise, when looking for a chili for a particular recipe, focus on the qualities that the author of the recipe wants to add to the dish. Then shop with your eyes, nose and even tear ducts. If you're looking for intense heat, find a chili that fits the bill. If the recipe need s a chili with a lot of flavor but without a lot of ardency, sniff around the markets until you find one you can use. Call it what you will, it's the characteristics of the chili pepper your after, not the name.

RECIPE - Spicy Mango Salad (Salada Apimentada de Manga)

One's first thoughts when contemplating how to cook or prepare fruits are normally in the dessert or sweet category. After all, fruits are full of natural and healthy sugars, and many of them are sweet enough to be served fresh and unadorned as a dessert course. A slice of pineapple, a bowl of perfectly ripe strawberries, a handful of frozen grapes - all are fantastic ways to end a meal. Or, alternatively, fruits can be gussied up and played with to create extravagant dessert creations - tarte tatin, key lime pie, pears poched in red wine. All these are based on the sweetness and the flavor of fruits.

But going sweet is not the only way to go with fruits in the kitchen. Fruits can create complex flavor surprises when combined with savory ingredients. Think of Moroccan tagines in which the sweet flavor of dried apricots or quinces is used to cut the fatty richness of slow-cooked lamb. Or think of (heaven forbid!) Hawaiian pizza with its ham and pineapple chunks.

Mangoes are a very versatile fruits and they can arrive at the table as a sweet course, or as a savory one. Although the sugar level of mangoes is very high - a perfect mango is one of the sweetest fruits in existance - they can be mixed with savory ingredients to create stellar and surprising dishes. Brazilians have long known this, and many traditional Brazilian recipes use mangoes in non-dessert dishes. This salad, whose flavor profile closely resembles the mango salsas that are one of the signatures of nuevo Latino cooking, is a perfect example. It mixes mangoes with a lime-based vinagrette, chopped onions and cilantro, and spices the whole thing up with hot chili-pepper flakes. Easy to make when mangoes are in season, it's a wonderful first course for a light, refreshing meal.
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RECIPE - Spicy Mango Salad (Salada Apimentada de Manga)
Serves 6

4 medium-sized mangoes, peeled and cubed
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh-squeezed lime juice
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp (or to taste) flaked, dried chili peppers***
2 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp finely minced red onion
salt and black pepper to taste

*** note: If you use a full Tbsp of flaked chilis, this salad will be quite spicy - the way Brazilians like it. If you're wary of chilis, start with a tsp only, sample, then add more if desired.
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Place the mango cubes in a large bowl. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the lime juice and olive oil together. Stir in the chili flakes, the cilantro and the onion. Whisk again briefly, then pour the dressing over the mango cubes. Mix well, making sure that all the mango cubes are coated with dressing. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to chill the salad and to allow the flavors to blend. Serve chilled.

RECIPE - Tangerine Caipirinha with Biquinho Peppers (Caipirinha de Tangerina com Pimenta-Biquinho)

Following last Friday's article about the unusual biquinho chili pepper, our plans were to publish a typical recipe which uses the pepper not for its spiciness (for it has no hotness) but for its fruity and pepperish flavor, then to move on to something else.

When we were researching recipes for the biquinho on the Internet, we came across a very informative site from a nursery and seed source from the coastal town of Ilhéus, Brazil in southern Bahia state. Yesterday, we published their recipe for preserving whole biquinho peppers.

On their site there was also a recipe for a cocktail which caught our eye. It was one more variation on the Brazilian national cocktail, the caipirinha, and though Flavors of Brazil has already published various caipirinha recipes, we couldn't resist this one. We're publishing it untested, but it looks so good and so unusual that we'll be testing it out this weekend, and promise to report back on it next week. Meantime, here's how to make one:
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RECIPE - Tangerine Caipirinha with Biquinho Peppers (Caipirinha de Tangerina com Pimenta-Biquinho)
Makes 2 drinks

3 fresh biquinho peppers
2 - 4 Tbsp granulated white sugar, to taste
3 oz. (200 ml) cachaça (can substitute tequila or vodka)
2 medium tangerines, peeled and seeded
cubed ice
2 tangerine segments, for garnish (optional)
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In each of two old-fashioned glass, add one-half of the tangerine segments (reserving two segments for garnish if desired), the sugar and 1/2 of a biquinho pepper. Using a pestle or the end of a wooden spoon, crush the mixture to extract all the juice and mix the ingredients.

Add 1 1/2 oz. cachaça to each glass, mix well, then fill the glass with ice. Add one whole biquinho pepper and an optional tangerine segment to garnish and serve immediately.

RECIPE - Preserved Biquinho Peppers (Conserva de Pimenta Biquinho)

This recipe, which comes from the website of a Brazilian nursery and online horticultural supply store called Agrotopical, is a typical Brazilian recipe for preserving whole chili peppers. The pepper in question in this recipe is the biquinho pepper, a pepper that has all the flavor of a chili with none of the bite (click here for more information on biquinho peppers). Any other small chili pepper, mild, medium, hot or scorching, and satisfactorially be substituted for biquinho.

In the recipe, the peppers are preserved in a mixture of white vinegar and cachaça. However, if you can't find cachaça in your local liquor store, you can substitute tequila or vodka. You can even use white rum, but if you do so, we'd suggest that you cut back on the amount of sugar called for, or the result will be overpoweringly sweet.
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RECIPE - Preserved Biquinho Peppers (Conserva de Pimenta Biquinho)
Makes one pint (500 ml)

1 cup (250 ml) white vinegar
1 cup (250 ml) cachaça
1 Tbsp granulated white sugar
1 tsp salt
ripe biquinho peppers (or other variety)
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Make the preserving liquid by combining the vinegar, cachaça , sugar and salt in a medium sauce pan, bringing the liquid to a boil and boiling for two minutes. Reserve, keeping simmering.

Prepare a large mixing bowl by filling it halfway with cold water, then adding 6-8 ice cubes. In another saucepan bring at least 4 cups (1 liter) of water to the boil. Put the peppers in the boiling water and let boil for 20 seconds only. Remove from the heat, drain immediately in a sieve or colander, then plunge the peppers into the ice water to stop the cooking process. Drain again. Reserve.

Using a properly sterilized Mason jar or other canning jar, pack the jar loosely with peppers. Bring the preserving liquid back to the boil, then fill the jar completely with the liquid. Tap the jar on a table or countertop a few times to make sure there are no air bubbles in the jar. Seal the jar and process in boiling water. (For directions on how to hot-water process, click here).

When processing is complete, let the jar cool completely on a wire rack. Let the jar stand in a cool, dark place for at least two weeks before consuming, and keep uneaten portions in the refrigerator once the jar is opened.

PEPPERS OF BRAZIL - Little-Beak Peppers (Pimenta Biquinho)

If you love the flavor of hot chili peppers, but have problems with their spicy "heat," then a variety of chili pepper from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais might just be the solution to your problems. Besides being hot, chili peppers have a fresh, fruity flavor that improves the flavor profile of any dish they're used in - but the flavor can be masked by the heat of the pepper. Sometimes for any number of reasons you might not want a spicy dish and so the normal solution is to eliminate the chilis entirely. With the Little-Beak pepper (pimenta biquinho in Portuguese) you can still get the flavor your want - it's just the spiciness that will be missing from whatever you're preparing.

Surprisingly, the biquinho pepper is a cultivar of the Capsicum chinense pepper, which makes it the same species as the fiery habanero pepper, one of the hottest in the world. As the heat in this species is a natural defense mechanism, botanists think that the biquinho is the result of selective cultivation - choosing only the seeds from the least-spicy plant to cultivate the following season. Over time the naturally-occurring heat of this chile has been eliminated in the piquinho cultivar.

Biquinho peppers are small, round and either a brilliant scarlet-red or sunshine-yellow, with a small beak-shaped protuberance hanging from the end. The plant makes a beautiful ornamental plant, and many biquinho plants grace Brazilian gardens and yards - not to be harvested for eating, but for the beauty of the plant and its fruit.

The most common way that piquinho peppers are eaten in Brazil is when they've been conserved in a vinegar solution and served as a garnish or as an appetizer with drinks. However, there are other ways to use biquinho peppers - they make a marvelous pepper jam or jelly, with none of the heat of most red-pepper jellies. We've seem them used to garnish cocktails such as a tangerine caipirinha. Or fresh biqiunho peppers can be used to perk up almost any soup, stew or braised dish.

In our next post, we'll publish a very Brazilian recipe for conserving biquinho peppers - one that can be adapted to almost any variety of chili pepper.

RECIPE - Homemade Hot Sauce, Brazilian Style (Pimenta Caseira)

Photo courtesy Come-se

A bottle of hot sauce, made with spicy chili peppers, vinegar and flavorings, is one of the most important tools in one's home pantry or on a shelf in the kitchen. Whenever a dish seems flat or a bit dull, a drop or two of hot sauce can perk it up, enliven all the other flavors of the dish, and make diners sit up and take notice. Smart cooks, professional and amateur, Brazilian or otherwise, have known this for a long time, and a bottle of hot sauce sits in a convenient location in their kitchens, waiting to be called on to bring a dish to life.

Many times, this hot sauce is the Louisiana-made Tabasco sauce, a marvelously useful and totally natural aged hot sauce. Few professional kitchens would be without Tabasco sauce. But there are many others as well, and each has its own personality, its signature.

In Brazil, it's common to make one's own hot sauce. It's not difficult to do and there are so many wonderful varieties of chilis to choose from in Brazil that you can make several for your kitchen arsenal - each one just different enough from the next to earn its own place on the shelf. Even in non-tropical countries, finding fresh chilis isn't much of a problem these days. Supermarkets sell them, and every type of urban ethnic market will have it's own selection. It's fun to experiment using different chilis. One hot sauce might turn out not to be very hot at all, and the next might be nuclear. Once you've found a combination that you like, homemade hot sauce also makes wonderful and inexpensive presents.

This recipe for Brazilian hot sauce comes to Flavors of Brazil from Brazilian culinary expert Neide Rigo's marvelous blog Come-se. Search out fresh chili peppers in your hometown, make a bottle or two of Come-se's hot sauce and guaranteed, you'll want to send Neide a big obrigado (thank-you). Enjoy.
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RECIPE - Homemade Hot Sauce, Brazilian Style (Pimenta Caseira)

NB. For a visually-attractive hot sauce, it's best to stick to red, orange and/or yellow chilis. Green chilis have can have marvelous flavor but their color darkens and dulls a blended hot sauce. If the color of the sauce isn't important to you, go ahead and add green chilis.


For the aromatic infusion:
1/3 cup good-quality vinegar, any type (plus more if needed to reach proper consistency)
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup cachaça
2 cloves
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh oregano
1 or 2 fresh leaves basil
1 tsp salt

For the solid ingredients:
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 Tbsp garlic, finely chopped
3 Tbsp onion, finely chopped
about 5 oz (150 gr) small hot chili peppers, ideally a mixture of two or three types, washed and stemmed
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Prepare the infusion - Put all the ingredients in a large pan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat slightly to a slow boil and let boil for two minutes. Remove from heat, cover the pan and reserve.

Prepare the solid ingredients - Heat the olive oil in another pan, add the garlic and fry until just lightly brown - do not let burn. Reduce the heat, add the chopped onion and cook until the onion is transparent and soft, but not browned. Add the chili peppers. Add the infusion, pouring through a fine sieve to remove the solid spices and herbs. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for about five minutes or until the chilis are soft and tender. Remove from heat and reserve, letting cool completely.

Pour the reserved chilis and their liquid into a food processor or a blender. Blend until completely smooth. Remove the cover and let the sauce rest - avoid breathing the fumes if possible. After an hour, pour the sauce into a large measuring cup with a lip, passing the sauce through a fine sieve to remove any solid bits remaining. Add extra vinegar if required to obtain a liquid consistency. With a small funnel, pour the sauce into small bottles. Close the bottle tightly and store the sauce in the refrigerator or on a cool, dark shelf in a cupboard or in the pantry. Before using, shake well, and add to any dish drop by drop testing after each addition for potency and piquancy.

How to Make Your Own Hot Sauce - Brazilian Style

Obviously, a blog that concerns itself with Brazilian food and Brazilian cooking traditions is going to spend some time discussing hot chili peppers. Though some regional cuisines of Brazil do entirely without chilis, they are in the minority. (Most of these regional cuisines are in the southernmost part of the country, which is not tropical and which has a population of mostly European ancestry).

Chilis are native to the hot-climate zones of the Americas and have been consumed in Brazil for millennia. The native population used chilis to season and to preserve foods long before the arrival of Europeans. The slaves who were transported from Africa to Brazil took enthusiastically to chilis upon their arrival. Even European culinary traditions were perked up with a dash of chili in Brazil.

Flavors of Brazil already has a significant number of posts about chili peppers. You can use the search box on this page or the Flavors of Brazil labels to track them down. We've discussed the botany of the capsicum family of plants, we've talked about the quest for the world's hottest pepper, and we have demonstrated how to preserve chili peppers at home in vinegar or cachaça.

We think that one of the most useful chili peppers products to have in one's kitchen, particularly when faced with a Brazilian recipe that calls for some heat, is in the form of a hot-chili sauce. A hot sauce is not the same thing as preserved chilis. Preserved chilis are left whole, or at most halved, and depend on the preservative powers of vinegar or cachaça. When they are used in the kitchen, it isn't the chilis themselves that go into the dish, it's the preservative liquid, which in the meantime has picked up flavor and piquancy from the chilis. The chilis themselves are not eaten and in the end are discarded.

In a hot sauce, however, the body of the chili becomes part of the sauce, and so the sauce has much more of the heat and the fruity flavor that a hot chili provides. Think of Tabasco sauce or any other bottled hot sauce. The ingredients are chilis, vinegar, flavoring ingredients and salt. These are combined, blended and bottled, resulting in a sauce which can be added to almost any dish in exactly the quantity desired.

It's this ability to control the amount of chili "heat" that makes hot sauce so useful in the kitchen. If you're making a stew, for example, and want to perk it up but not make it fiery, adding hot sauce drop by drop and testing after each addition allows precise control of the heat. If you're working with whole chilis you can control the heat a bit by adding only one chili or two, but you don't have the same control. Sometimes even one chili is too much, and if you cut a chili in half you don't necessarily cut down on the heat. That's where hot sauce steps in.

Brazil has thousands of hot sauces sold commercially, including American-made Tabasco sauce by the way. Many are cheap industrial products that add little to a dish but heat, though there are many, many wonderful sauces as well. However, it's so easy to make hot sauce at home and the result is so superior to almost any commercial product that it's worth the effort to make you own at home. It will taste better than just about any store-bought sauce, it will have just the potency you want, and just like a favorite perfume can become your fragrance identifier, your homemade hot sauce can add your own identity to your spicy dishes.

Next round on Flavors of Brazil we'll detail exactly how to make your "signature" hot sauce.

RECIPE - Preserved Malagueta Peppers (Conserva de Pimenta Malagueta)

This simple recipe for preserving malagueta peppers in oil is typically Bahian - that is, from the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. The cuisine of Bahia is often considered the most highly-developed and the most distinctive of all regional Brazilian cuisines and it brings memories of Africa and the Brazilian slave experience to the dining table. Bahian cooking is also, by any definition, the spiciest of all Brazilian gastronomic styles, and the presence of chili peppers in Bahian cooking is ubiquitous. Even of a meal consists only of white rice plus beans, as it often does for poorer Bahians, there is always hot chili pepper sauce to enliven the offering.

Most Bahian cooks - homemakers and professional chefs alike - make their own preserved peppers. The basic recipe is simple, nothing more than fresh chili peppers, perhaps some other flavoring ingredients like garlic or ginger, covered in oil and allowed to sit for some time so that they oil will take on the flavor and the heat of the peppers. At the table, the oil is spooned over a dish or plate of food but normally the peppers themselves are not eaten. Often the oil is topped up to assure a continuous supply of sauce.

This recipe is translated and adapted from an older post (2007) in a Brazilian blog called Um Casal na Cozinha (A Couple in the Kitchen). It's really more of lesson in how to make preserved peppers than a proper recipe. The recipe can be adapted using any variety of small hot chili pepper you might be able to find in a local market, or even a combination of chilis.

As this recipe will result in a jar of hot sauce to be used over a period of time, it's imperative to work hygienically, and to keep the sauce in the refrigerator once it's made. At the slightest indication of spoilage, discard the remaining quantity, and sterilize the jar if you intend to use it again to make preserved peppers.
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RECIPE - Preserved Malagueta Peppers (Conserva de Pimenta Malagueta)

1 canning jar, any size desired, plus new lid and screwband
malagueta peppers, sufficient quantity to completely fill jar (or can substitute other chilis or a mix)

a few whole garlic cloves, peeled
one or two one-inch chunks of fresh ginger, peeled
kosher or pickling salt
1 oz. cachaça or brandy
olive oil, extra-virgin preferred
neutral vegetable oil, grapeseed or canola preferred
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(Use plastic gloves whenever working with the malagueta chilis in this recipe, and when finished wash hands in hot, soapy water to remove any traces of capsaicin.)

Wash the chili peppers well in fresh water, and then poke one or two small holes in the flesh of each one using a toothpick or small skewer. This will allow the oil to penetrate into the chilis.

Sterilize the canning jar and lid following normal canning procedures. Pack the jar about one-third full with peppers, filling the jar tightly, but don't compress the peppers until they burst. Add half of the garlic and ginger, and sprinkle on a bit of salt. Add another third of a jar of peppers, top with the remaining garlic and ginger, sprinkle on a bit more salt and then fill the jar completely with peppers.

Drizzle the cachaça or brandy over the peppers in the jar, then fill the jar halfway with olive oil. Add sufficient vegetable oil to fill the jar completely. Tap the jar lightly on the countertop to remove any air bubble, and if required add a bit more oil to cover the peppers.

Tightly close the jar, turn it over once or twice to mix the oils, then set aside for at least two weeks in the refrigerator to mature.

When you want to use the sauce or to serve it at the table, remove it from the refrigerator a few hours beforehand to allow it to come to room temperature.

Pimenta Jiquitaia - a Development Project by Brazil's Indigenous Amazonians

In the past few weeks media around the world have published photos of one of the last indigenous tribes in the Amazonian jungles of Brazil that remains "uncontacted" by modern society. It is estimated that there are up to 100 groups or tribes still remaining in the world's largest rain forest that have had no contact with the outside world. It is only in the Amazon and in western Papua New Guinea where there are still populations living as they always have - with non of the benefits, discomforts or dangers of the 21st century world.

There are, of course, many more tribes in those regions that have contact with the world outside their forest, but in Brazil, the amount and kind of that contact is often limited in an attempt to preserve traditional lifestyles and cultures. A governmental organization, FUNAI, is charged with protecting these people and their culture, which it has done with varying success. There are numerous NGOs as well who work with native groups to ensure the continued viability of traditional Indian cultures.

One of these NGOs, called the Instituto Socioambental (ISA), has a project to help the women of the Baniwa tribe in the upper reaches of the Rio Negro commercialize a traditional product called pimenta jiquitaia. It is a ground mixture of dried chile peppers and salt, something the tribe has used to season their food since before the arrival of Europeans to the Amazon. In traditional Indian cooking, spices and seasonings were never added during the cooking process - meats were grilled without seasoning, and broths and stews were similarly unseasoned. The Indians preferred to add seasoning directly to their food when it was in the mouth - tossing a bit of pimenta jiquitaia into their mouth as they chewed a piece of meat.

The Baniwa live in one of the most isolated parts of Brazil, a region known as São Gabriel da Cachoeira
Exibir mapa ampliado along the upper stretches of the Rio Negro - about 850 km. northwest of Manaus, where the Rio Negro joins the Amazon. Working with ISA coordinator Adeilson Lopes da Silva, the Baniwa women have begun to commercially produce pimenta jiquitaia using traditional techniques and ingredients (mostly pimenta malagueta, but also other varities of hot peppers.) It is hoped that sales of pimenta jiquitaia will provide needed income to the producers while at the same time introducing a traditional aboriginal food product to the larger world outside the rain forest of the Amazonian basin.

Ranking chilis - The Scoville Scale

A while ago, I posted an article on Flavors of Brazil detailing the antics and activities of a group of hot chili fans from São Paulo, the Jolokianos. They are united in their love (and tolerance) for the world's hottest pepper, the Bhut Jolokia. The status that this chili enjoys as the top dog of the the world's hot peppers isn't merely an impression, it's a proven fact. In 1912, an American chemist, Wilbur Scoville developed a scale for determining the relative hotness/pungency of any species of chili pepper, and he called it the Scoville Organoleptic Test.

The Scoville Organoleptic Test is not infallible, as it based on the taste perceptions of five human tasters, but it does provide a reliable guide to the relative strength of the capsaicin oil content of a species or hybrid of chili pepper.

Although the Bhut Jolokia is the "hottest" chile in the world, with a Scoville rating of 1 million, it is not common in Brazil, nor is its use traditional. Certain regional cuisines of Brazil do make extensive use of chilis, and chili "heat" is an important part of their flavor profiles. It's interesting to see where the chilis commonly used in Brazilian cuisine fit on the Scoville scale, in comparison to other Brazilian chilis, and to other chiles used elsewhere in the world.

Here is a basic rundown of the relative "heat" of a number of Brazilian and non-Brazilian chilis, starting with the Bhut Jolokia, the world's hottest, with following chilis becoming progressively milder. The chilis are broken into three group: hot, medium, and mild.

HOT CHILIS: 
Bhut Jolokia (Scoville 1,000,000)
The hottest in the world, colored red and brown. Don't try to eat uncooked.

Bhut Jolokia

Red Savina (up to Scoville 580,000)
Hybridized in California, with undulating shape. Makes good sauces and preserves.

Red Savina

Habanero (Scoville 500,000)
When ripe very hot. Various colors. Used in making salsas, moles and chutneys.

Habanero

Scotch Bonnet (Scoville 250,000)
Flattened and irregular. Fruity aroma. Used in Caribbean sauces, like jerk.

Scotch Bonnet

Malagueta (Scoville 100,000)
Hottest Brazilian chili on this list. Iconic chili of Bahia. Goes well with fish and meat dishes.

Malagueta

MEDIUM CHILIS:
Murupi (Scoville 60,000)
Aromatic. Abundant in the north of Brazil, where it is preserved in whey.

Murupi

Fidalga (Scoville 50,000)
Common in the states of Mato Grosso and São Paulo. Makes good sauces and preserves, and accompanies salads.

Fidalga

Pimenta-de-bode (Scoville 50,000)
In the state of Goiás it is used to flavor almost all of traditional daily dishes.

Pimenta-de-bode

Cayenne (up to Scoville 50,000)
Eaten dried and ground in Africa and India. Indispensable in Cajun cooking.

Cayenne

Tabasco (up to Scoville 50,000)
Elongated, colored red or yellow. Highly flavored, used primarily in sauces, including Tabasco Sauce.

Tabasco

Cumari (up to Scoville 50,000)
Brazilian green chili, with small egg-shaped fruit. Can be eaten fresh or cooked in sauces.

Cumari

MILD CHILIS:
Pimenta-de-cheiro (Scoville 20,000)
Color varies from light green to bright yellow. Common in the north and southeast of Brazil. Aromatic.

Pimenta-de-cheiro

Dedo-de-Moça (Scoville 15,000)
Green and elongated. When dried and ground it is known in the south of Brazil as pimenta-calabresa.

Dedo-de-Moça

Jalapeño  (Scoville 5,000)
Along with the tabasco chili, it is the most consumed in the USA. Makes excellent sauces.

Jalapeño

Biquinho (Scoville 1,000)
Very mild. Small and sweet, it is used in sauces, pickled or eaten raw.

Biquinho

The chilis in this list that are used most in Brazilian cuisine represent a good sampling of Brazil's chili harvest, but certainly not the totality. There are literally thousands of varieties of chili peppers that are used daily by chefs and cooks in the creation of Brazilian cuisine, both traditional and contemporary. From the relative ranking, you can see that Brazilian gastronomy is not afraid of hot chilis; on the other hand, with the exception of the Bahian regional cuisine, is it among the world's "spiciest" cuisines. The contribution of chilis to the flavors of Brazil is most often in the form of a hot chili sauce, and thus the amount of heat desired is very much a personal one. One person at the table might want to add 500,000 Scoville units to his or her meal, another 5,000 and another none at all. By keeping the "heat" in a tabletop sauce, all these options are open to the Brazilian diner.

RECIPE - Home-made chili-pepper sauce (pimenta)

This is really more a how-to post, than a true recipe. The ingredients and quantities vary so much that it's impossible to write a traditional-style recipe. However, it's very easy to explain, and extremely easy to make. The resulting sauce, pimenta, can be used on the stove to spice up food as it's being cooked, or it can stand on the table to allow diners to add to their own taste. It's inexpensive, and it lasts forever without spoiling.

First, you need to collect the ingredients and materials. You'll need about 1/2 lb. (500 gr.) of one or more varieties of small, hot chili peppers. What's available to you will depend on your own market sources in your city. For the sauce in the photos in this post, I used two chili peppers available locally here in Fortaleza - malagueta and camurim. The vendor I bought the chilis from at Fortaleza's central market, Sao Sebastiao, recommended combining these two, as the malagueta would provide the heat, and the camurim would provide the aroma and flavor. You'll also need some small glass bottles, suitable for the size of the chilis. I used recycled Worcestershire sauce bottles, but almost any kind will work. And last, you'll need some liquid to cover the chilis in the bottle. The liquids used most commonly in Brazil are vinegar (white or wine) or cachaça, Brazil's sugar-cane based liquor. I chose cachaça.

In preparing the pimenta, it's best to use rubber gloves whenever handling the chilis. Wash the chilis thoroughly, then pull off the stems, leaving the chilis whole. Pack them into the bottle, filling it completely. Then add the liquid to cover, and cap the bottle. Let stand at least 3 days for flavor to develop before using. As the pimenta is used at the stove or table, the liquid can be replenished.

Incidentally, pimenta makes an excellent gift for a holiday, or as a host/hostess present at a dinner party.

Pimentas and Pimenta

The Portuguese word pimenta is used to refer both to the family of plants that are called chilis or chili peppers in English, and to the table-top sauce made from the fruits of these plants. It's a bit like the situation in English where tabasco is the name of a particular species of chili pepper AND the name of the sauce made from this pepper.

Brazilian food, contrary to what many people believe, is not necessarily spicy and hot. Certain regional cuisines, indeed, are very spicy - Bahian food, or Amazonian food. In other regions in Brazil food normally comes to the table unspiced. However, whether in a restaurant or at home, a bottle of pimenta stands in the middle of the table, like salt and pepper might in North America, ready to be used by any one who wants to spice up a dish on their plate. If it's not on the table at a restaurant, it can always be obtained on demand.

A tremendous number of different chilis are grown in Brazil, and the taxonomic confusion is enormous. The same pepper might have two different names in different regions - or two totally unrelated peppers might share a single name. To add to the confusion, some common Brazilian chilis are also used in other national cuisines, but with different names.

For instance, one of the most common hot chilis in Brazil is called the malagueta. In Portugal, and in Portuguese-speaking Africa, it's called peri-peri or piri-piri. In Asia, it's known as the birdseye pepper or the Thai chili, and in North America it's our familiar Tabasco.

There are literally hundreds of other common names for chilis in Brazil. We'll be exploring some of them in this blog.

If you would like to make a Brazilian-style pimenta at home, it's very easy. The instructions are in the following post.