So lately I’ve been on a hot pepper kick of sorts, inspired by Amal Naj’s book, Peppers: A Tale of Hot Pursuits. A few days ago I went down to the Asian market in Ueno (the basement of Ameyoko’s センタービル) and picked up a bag of Korean green chili peppers. That night we were a bit hungry after putting the boy to bed and decided to try them. Being adventurous fools, we just each took one and bit off the end. The first bite didn’t feel particularly spicy, so we shrugged and took another. It was about 10 seconds after that when the pain started to come. We did each finish our pepper, but it was among the more intensely painful things I’ve put my tongue through. (They weren’t habanero level, but certainly made jalapeños seem like strawberries by comparison.)
Two nights ago we made hummus, and conservatively added one of the peppers. The hummus was great, but the pepper had disappointingly little impact. So tonight I decided to make a spicy late night snack for my wife, who was working on a translation job. I rinsed three chili peppers, took out the seeds, and chopped them finely. I fried 200 grams of ground chicken thigh, adding curry powder, garam masala, dried basil, garlic powder, salt, mirin, soy sauce, and the chopped chili peppers. Basically, in man-cooking style, I just grabbed whatever looked good from the cabinet under the stove. It turned out surprisingly Thai, and was actually incredibly good and reasonably spicy. (A little more bite would have been even better though.) I hate to brag, but my wife was very impressed.
I did make one mistake though. After the cooking was done I went to the bathroom to urinate. I had rinsed my hands previously, but not washed properly with soap. (I wash well with soap after the bathroom, not before.) It took a full minute after I came out for the pain to come. I have never experienced that kind of burning down there. I pray that I never will again. A partial shower and a lot of soap helped, but there was nothing to do but wait for the burning to cease completely. The morale of the story: wash your hands properly after handling chili peppers!
Andje and I were just talking about getting chili pepper in our eyes; and how deliberately putting soap in them is a pain that feels better than the burning…
Yeah, in some cultures rubbing chili peppers in people’s eyes and genitalia was a standard method of torture…
Years ago I was cutting up green Thai chilies for green curry when I rubbed my eyes- torture. (And up to that point I thought the worst part was the smell of the Thai shrimp paste…)