Last time I talked about adding chili peppers to your traditional Jewish recipes to create new exciting dishes. This time I’d like to give you a few pointers on cooking with hot chilies. It is important to remember when handling chili peppers that they contain oils that can burn and irritate your skin and eyes, so you need to take extra precautions when handling them.
To handle fresh chili peppers when preparing them you may want to wear latex gloves. This will prevent your skin from being burnt by the volatile oils that the chilies contain. If you don’t have gloves, wash your hands right after handling the chilies to prevent skin irritation. Finally, don’t rub your eyes after handling a chili pepper, even if your only contact was with the exterior of the pepper.
There are several ways to prepare a chili pepper. You can dice it and add it to a stew or soup, you can fire roast it, you can bake it or you can pickle it. If you have a recipe that calls for a roasted chili pepper and you have a gas stove then all you have to do is turn on a burner and place the chili on the flame directly. Turn it as the skin chars using your fingers or a pair of tongs. If you are not up to this challenge, or if you have an electric range, then place the chili on a cookie sheet, move the rack to the top level and broil the chili, turning it once to make sure the entire chili is directly exposed to your heat source.
Chilies can spice up all sorts of special Jewish recipes including slimming low fat Jewish recipes and other traditional Jewish food recipes.
