Really hot chili

April 18, 2008

Well, you can't tell by looking at it how hot it is going to be. (If you need to ask if the heat is from the stove, you're reading the wrong blog, sorry). You just gotta make something and then taste it. OK, actually, you can get some good clues about the heat level from your fingers if you handle the stuff while you are preparing it, and your nose, if you have some experience. Again, I bet you know this already.

Carl - my brother, for any who don't know - does a lot of cooking in our household (which he is a part of). He made some totally awesome chicken and green chili and hominy soup day before yesterday (Thursday, as we all know, is Carrillo's night), but it was hot! The kind of hot that makes you sweat. The kind of hot that sticks around in your mouth for a while. The kind of hot that you get to re-experience a little later in a way that I won't speak about, but I know you know what I mean. But it was GOOD, and we ate it, mmmmmm. But there was a lot of it left, and you know what? It only gets hotter in the fridge. Not only that, but it doesn't get milder if you add mild chili... you just have more really hot stuff.

But Carl came up with a plan. He made a casserole from it for dinner tonight. He added some cream of mushroom soup and some cheddar cheese soup, and some pasta shells, and put cheese (I'll eat almost anything with cheese on it) and fritos (for a little crunch) on top. It worked! and it was YUMMY. Ok, there was a little afterburn that you would notice when you finished eating, but the chili wasn't too hot to eat... didn't even break a sweat. So, now you know what to do when you've made something with chili that is just really too hot, but you can't bear to get rid of it because, well, it is after all, chili. Yep, that's right, e-mail Carl, and get a consultation.