hot pepper flakes

1. theory
2. equipments
3. ingredients
4. recipe

theory

It goes without saying the jars of "red chili flakes" which you can find at the grocery market are no good. The fact is not worth dwelling on. Occasionally, at a honest-to-goodness pizzeria, the sort of place that is not well lit even at midday and where you can enjoy a Peroni and a plate of garlic knots for less than the price of a fancy cup of coffee, you will find a jar on the table of what seem to be homemade hot pepper flakes. You will know if they are the real thing. In case the poor lighting and Peroni and garlic knots did not already cue you in, that is the sort of place worth returning to, over and over again. Your search, my friend, is at an end.

Anyway, real proper hot pepper flakes pretty much have to be made by oneself in the kitchen at home, with very healthy- and wholesome-looking peppers grown in one's own or in a close friend's garden, fruits full of vigor and the heat of life. The process of dehydrating the peppers in the oven will fill your kitchen and much of your house with an almost visible, very potent atmosphere of peppers, so it is best to crack a few windows, turn on a fan or two if you have any.

These pepper flakes will be hot. Just a tiny pinch will transport you farther than any store-bought garbage. You will know you have applied a sufficient quantity to your dish when you begin to sweat profusely, uncontrollably, all over your scalp and along the back of your neck, dripping into your eyelashes and perhaps mingling too with tears, minutes into enjoying your meal. And the powder -- the flakes are one thing, and woe to you if one lodges in your throat "the wrong way" -- but the powder is not by any means to be trifled with.

equipments

• oven
• sheet pans
• chopping block
• paring knife
• food processor, blender, or coffee grinder
• mason jar

ingredients

• large quantity of hot peppers, from the garden, for example, several dozen habaneros, as many cayennes, and a dozen lemon and cherry peppers each

recipe

1. peppers from the garden do not really need to be washed, so that step may be dispensed with
2. from each pepper, cut away the stem and its cap at the top of the pepper; then slice each pepper in half, being sure to retain all of the seeds and pith of each
3. place the pepper halves on the baking sheets
4. open the door to the oven, place the sheets on the racks in the oven, close the door of the oven, and turn on the oven and set its temperature to the lowest possible setting, somewhere around 150°F; let the peppers dry out and shrivel in the oven for fourteen to sixteen hours
5. turn off the oven, open its door, and remove the sheets to the stove- or countertop
6. dump all of the pepper halves, pith and seeds included, into the food processor
7. pulse the desiccated peppers until they have been broken apart into flakes of a generally uniformly suitably small size
8. transfer the pepper flakes into a glass jar; they will keep for some years