Food Product Design: Applications - September 2005 - Picking a Peck of Peppers

September 2005

Picking a Peck of Peppers

By Martin SchultzContributing Editor

A sandwich of shredded pork slow-roasted with guajillo chiles, pickled red onions, guacamole and pineapple pico de gallo. A bag of red, yellow, green and orange peppers imported from the Netherlands. A TV food show dedicated to tips on how to remove the skin from peppers before using them in a pasta dish. An ice cream flavored with hot sauce.

So vast is the range of peppery creations available today and so varied the applications to which they are put, that Peter Piper would certainly show a lack of imagination if he restricted himself to pickled peppers.

A popular pod Native to Latin America, Capsicum in its five principal manifestations is grown, harvested, refrigerated and processed from China to the Carolinas. At least 1,000 different varieties have found a place in the pantheon of food applications. Most popularly known for their fiery hot taste, peppers cover the gamut of taste, color and utility value. From the Anaheim to the yatsafusa, from the fiery reds to the sweet, light greens to the dark browns, peppers are whetting the public appetite for exotic recipes while the public demand for pepper-infused food soars.

The reason is simple. "Chiles add not only heat, but color and flavor to foods," says Nancy Farace, technical marketing manager, McCormick & Co., Inc., Hunt Valley, MD. "Consumers are eating dishes from an even broader selection of ethnic cuisines, many of which are flavored by various types of peppers."

These days, to a much greater extent than ever before, North American and European dishes are including a wider range of mild to moderately hot peppers. Thus, pastas are often accompanies by sauces enriched with red peppers and breakfast omelets, especially those defined as "Southwestern," have jalapeño accents.

Seasonings flavored with single chile peppers or with blends of chile peppers, along with chile-and-lime combinations, have been finding favor with an upscale restaurant clientele seeking a sharper, more-defined and more-piquant taste than the often milder, traditional fare. "The restaurant trade," Farace says, "continues to look to ethnic-inspired sauces and seasonings to offer highly-flavored dishes on their menus."

Latin, Caribbean, Indian and Thai cuisines have all inspired pepper-influenced offerings at a growing number of popular restaurant chains. Traditionally considered "too hot" for the average American palate, until recently they were forced to neuter their seasonings to make the dishes taste milder and thereby win acceptance with the broader public. Today, with Americans traveling ever farther afield, they are coincidentally becoming more interested in the authentic ethnicity of other cultures.

For example, versions of vindaloo, a popular, fiery-hot Indian curry dish made with beef, chicken and even duck, are making their way onto more menus.

While the Jamaicans have cornered the market on jerk chicken, a less well-known dish that they have also perfected is the meat pie. Eaten hot or cold, the Jamaican meat pie usually incorporates beef or chicken liberally laced with a jalapeño-pepper blend.

Where Thai food is concerned, a combination of black pepper, fresh coriander and garlic provides the basic flavoring for a number of dishes that are hitting American menus with increasing frequency.

"Cuisines are becoming more true to their origins and available here in the United States," notes Jason Gronlund, executive chef and director of culinary services, McIlhenny Company, Avery Island, LA. "People are no longer accepting poor, watered-down dilutions of what the recipe should be."

This, combined with a heightened interest in wellness and health-improvement -- research has shown peppers to positively influence blood pressure and cholesterol levels -- has induced more of us to taste ethnic food in its original, unadulterated form, which often means a sharper or hotter flavor.

Beside the growth in the popularity of ethnic cuisines among the broader American public, food processors have been carefully watching the interrelated popularity of traditional food preparation within growing ethnic communities, which often prefer their own foods. "With the increase in Hispanic and Asian populations, the increased demand for chiles in all forms is apparent," Farace contends.

"When I was younger, you did not see these true cuisines," Gronlund says. "To me Chinese food was sweet and sour. Japanese was Benihana and Mexican was a taco." Authentic Asian and Mexican dishes, he says, have moved far beyond this simplistic fare, in large measure based on the inclusion of a more-authentic range of pepper-based ingredients. Chipotle, traditional red and even habanero, he notes, all find their way into interesting new recipes currently appearing on restaurant menus now.

Tortilla soup has become a hot favorite of both upscale and chain Mexican restaurants. The best examples of tortilla soup make liberal use of Anaheim and poblano peppers, which add a lively beat to fresh corn and tomatoes in an aromatic broth. By the same token, more Americans are showing a willingness to try such "new" recipes as mole. Although an ancient preparation, this combination of chile sauce and bitter Mexican chocolate has become an avant-garde theme at an increasing number of upscale Latin American restaurants in the United States.

While acknowledging that chile peppers are definitely taking off, Reid Wilkerson, president of McClancy Seasoning Co., Fort Mill, SC, nevertheless sees a slightly different reason for their rise. "The current boom in popularity is as much to do with marketing as anything," he says. "For example, one major restaurant chain has made a big play on how to correctly pronounce 'chipotle,' so that potential patrons can confidently request it when they get to the restaurant."

Think of the word "anchos," Wilkerson suggests. "People are willing to try something often just because it sounds exotic," believing, not coincidentally, that the item is also likely to taste exotic.

Unholy heat The five principal species of chile pepper consist of C. annuum, which includes the bulk of the common varieties such as the jalapeño and bell peppers; C. baccatum, which covers the aji, a South American variety that can vary from berrylike to more-elongated pods; C. chinense, which embraces the white-hot habanero; C. frutescens, covering the bushy pepper plants like Tabasco; and the domesticated C. pubescens, which includes the rocoto peppers commonly cultivated in South America.

The degree of heat present in any given chile pepper was traditionally calculated using Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). In 1912, a chemist named Wilber Scoville created a system to calculate the heat level of chile peppers. The "Scoville Organoleptic Test" process involved diluting a pepper solution and then sipping it in increasingly diluted concentrations. A value was assigned to each chile pepper based on how much dilution was required before the testers could no longer "sense" the chile's heat.

The Scoville heat calculator is based on the ratio of 1 part of chile "heat" per 1 million drops of water. Measured in multiples of 100 units, sweet bell peppers are rated at zero SHUs. On the other end of the scale, the profoundly hot habanero is calculated at 300,000-plus SHUs. The substance that makes chile peppers so fiery is capsaicin. This chemical compound encompasses a handful of capsaicinoids, which mainly include capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, as well as lower levels of nordihydrocapsaicin, homocapsaicin and homodihydrocapsaicin. Each capsaicinoid contributes a different level of heat and flavor accent, and different chiles vary in their capsaicinoid composition. Pure capsaicin rates between 15,000,000 and 16,000,000 SHUs.

Today, a more-precise analytical method called liquid chromatography is employed to ascertain capsaicin levels, though in honor of Scoville, the unit of measure is still named after him. The most-accurate method for measuring pungency in chiles is high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). With this process, the chile pods are dried and ground. The chemicals associated with the pungency are then separated and the extract analyzed. While this method tends to cost more than the Scoville test, it is more precise, measuring the total heat as well as the individual capsaicinoids present.

Formulated for complexity While restaurant patrons might be looking for a flavor that's exotic or hot, seasoning companies are searching for a taste and appearance that's complex. "In our formulations, we use a large variety of different kinds of chiles to achieve a color balance and interesting or varied background notes," Wilkerson explains. "And to build complexity, you have to develop differently blended attributes -- 'smooth and rounded,' for example."

Gronlund gives an example of a typical pepper blend used for a shake or rub: "You'd start with cracked black peppers, add some green peppercorns, some crushed peppers and then, for visual effect and sweetness, some red and green bell peppers -- maybe even some dried poblano peppers." To balance the flavors, he suggests adding salt, garlic, onion and a splash of citrus, such as lime. "This is one way to balance heat with complexity of flavor and visual appeal."

Seasoning companies might blend up to five different types of chiles to achieve the exact level of desired complexity. To get a sense of the scale of a chile-seasoning operation, it bears mentioning that companies might purchase from 20 to 40 different varieties and then go on to create 700 to 800 different formulations, ranging from ground and flaked products to batters, breadings, marinades, rubs and sauces.

Chile-accented applications are now so popular with food processors that general formulations have long since given way to a wide variety of specialized types targeted at specific market segments. For example, blended, ground products are aimed squarely at the snack-food market. "Snack-food processors depend on the flavor of chiles in their seasonings to create innovative new products," Farace says.

Meanwhile, McClancy is working on a "barbecue-shaker" chile-pepper blend -- so called due to its traditional use as a seasoning shaken or rubbed onto grilling meats -- for a potato-chip-seasoning application. The company is also developing a second blend for use as a topical application for french fries and a third as a rub for barbecue chicken. But, as Wilkerson notes, developing the precise blend each time is neither easy nor simple. "We spent two years getting the potato chip seasoning right," he says.

If seasoning processors are confronting difficulties in developing perfect blends of chile-pepper formulations, food-application manufacturers should also expect to meet with their own difficulties as they process peppers for various applications. For example, when injecting steam during cooking, processors need to realize that they will darken the pigment of the pepper. In fact, the caramelization of the sugar changes the hue of the pepper and, without intending it, a manufacturer could easily start out with a light tone and end up unwittingly creating a very dark product, with dark, roasted background notes.

Although steam injection can pose difficulties, processors tend to prefer the technique for a number of reasons. Because it can reach very high temperatures, it is considered safe. Also, in experienced hands, it is a more-controllable form of cooking than other approaches, such as searing over an open flame.

"Processors should be cognizant of the risk that what they set out to achieve in the lab," Wilkerson says, "and what they will ultimately attain in production may end up being two different things. And color changes are only one of the more-important attributes that could change as they scale-up. It's also important to choose the right chile for the desired application. You have to know what the final product is."

Another sensitive processing point is related to refrigeration and/or freezing. When the product is brought up for reheating, care should be taken to ensure the appropriate temperature. Peppers cannot survive too much hardship, which can arise from abrupt temperature changes. A gradual process of bringing the peppers back to ambient temperature can help preserve the chiles' integrity. Also, some peppers, such as the jalapeño, have thicker skins than others. If left too long to reach ambient temperature, the outer skin will survive admirably while the core of the pepper rapidly rots.

Farace notes some other manufacturing suggestions: "Processed chiles can be supplemented with a flavor, ground spice, or spice alternative, such as an oleoresin or water-soluble version of the extract. These products allow the formulator to control the flavor and the heat level in the finished product."

In fact, processors are able to control the quantity of heat, the visual appearance and the texture fairly precisely. For example, "when visuals are important," says Farace, "ground chiles are used in the seasoning blend to provide color, as well as taste and heat. When chiles are used in a wet system, such as a condiment, they are selected for texture in addition to color, flavor and heat. If heat alone is sought, processors will use a liquid or a dried Capsicum product in a spray-dried form. For anything but heat, a blend that incorporates a blend of spice alternative in conjunction with ground chile pepper would be desirable."

Another option for designers when developing new products, especially frozen items, is individually quick-frozen (IQF) chiles. A variety of standard and fire-roasted IQF chiles can add a distinctive accent to ethnic frozen entrées and other products. As interest in spicier and ethnic fare has increased, so have the IQF options available to designers.

As Americans have become exposed to more-authentic ethnic food, they have gradually become more heat tolerant, says Wilkerson. This is especially true of the younger generation. "One of the leading fast-food chains now offers a chicken sandwich they claim is so hot it'll take your head off! It's as much a facet of demographics as that of changing tastes."

Whether the issue is one of demographics or changing consumer tastes, for the food processor, perhaps the greatest challenge is to determine the correct or acceptable level of heat for each different market segment. Blending in this sense becomes more of an art than a science, since even allowing for more-precise Scoville HPLC testing, ultimately heat is in the tears of the taster. "When is hot too hot?" asks Farace. "When is it not hot enough? Only through knowledge of the consumer can these questions be answered."

Of course, what seasoning blenders as well as restaurant chains are realizing is that consumers have discovered the joy of do-it-yourself. "One of the most popular attributes of chile products is that the heat can be customized at the table through the addition of ground, crushed or sauce-based pepper products," says Farace. Pizza parlors discovered this piece of marketing wisdom decades back and provided shakers of red-pepper flakes for every table.

And while an unrepentant Peter might still pickle his peppers, Americans are fast getting used to the outer limits of peppery conjunctions, such as pairing chile peppers with chocolate. As Wilkerson intimated, what people are looking for is complexity.

May the taste be with you.

Martin Schultz is an experienced consumer and trade magazine writer with a special interest in food and food-technology topics. He can be contacted at [email protected] .

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