Cooking with hot chiles

[inlemur]

Yesterday I cooked pad thai from a relatively simple recipe. I had used the recipe once before, and it was ok, but a little bland, so I decided to add those hot chiles that you usually find in asian dishes.

I added them (just threw them in uncrushed) to the stir-fry briefly when it was almost done. When I tasted it, it was not spicy at all. So I took one of the peppers and rubbed it onto a piece of chicken. Still no hot taste. I then tried putting the chile in my mouth; no taste at all. Finally, I opened the pepper and tasted one of the seeds, and I think it seared a hole in my tongue. So I mixed the seeds with the food on my plate, and got a small bit of spiciness, but not much.

Any suggestions for preparing the dish with spicyness correctly? I've had a few ideas: crush the peppers when I mix them in with the stir-fry; crush the peppers then mix them with the oil I use to cook the stir fry, then strain the seeds/chile out and maybe I'll have "hot oil" to cook with; remove the seeds from the chile and mix them with the food after it has been cooked. Are any of those ideas any good?

[bisonbison]

Dice the chilis, then add them to the stirfry first (at the onions and garlic stage). The seeds are about 20x stronger than the skin, so if you're squeamish, gut the insides before dicing.

[soko]

In all the asian dishes I eat the chilies are usually minced in to tiny little peices with 1 or 2 whole chilies in there for appearance.

[punkass]

Actually the seeds don't hold the heat. Seeds are bitter, but no heat.

The heat is in the membrane inside of the chile. If you take a small knife, and filet the membrane off the chile, you get a fruitier chile with less heat. If you like the heat, then leave it on.

[inlemur]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually the seeds don't hold the heat. Seeds are bitter, but no heat.

The heat is in the membrane inside of the chile. If you take a small knife, and filet the membrane off the chile, you get a fruitier chile with less heat. If you like the heat, then leave it on.

[/ QUOTE ]

I put one of the seeds on my tongue. As I mentioned, the sensation was something like someone branding my tongue with a tiny red-hot poker. I had my girlfriend do the same, it got stuck under her tongue and she was pissed at me the rest of the night for making her taste it.

Anyway, does anyone have a good idea on how many diced chiles I should add to a 2-3 serving batch to get a "hot" level which is comparable to what I get at my favorite Thai place? (their scale is mild, medium, hot, and native Thai; hot is quite hot) I don't really want to ruin several dinners trying to get the ratio of chiles:food correct.

[AlphaWice]

If you "filet" the chilis, about 5. Unfilet, and you are not really into eating spicy food, you can get away with 1 or 2.

[Elevens]

I'd repost this in Mod's Playground (this week) or even the Quiet Zone for even more response if I were you.

[KaneKungFu123]

In Thailand, chillis are diced and place inside a little plastic dish of fish sauce for you to flavor at your own desire.

They also provide Vinegar, Chilli Powder, and Sugar.

Dont forget to prepare banana leaves and green onion on the side, along with crushed peanuts. Tofu is added to the dish also.

Next time post pictures of your recipe. This seems like a really hard recipe to prepare from a western supermarket.

[KaneKungFu123]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually the seeds don't hold the heat. Seeds are bitter, but no heat.

The heat is in the membrane inside of the chile. If you take a small knife, and filet the membrane off the chile, you get a fruitier chile with less heat. If you like the heat, then leave it on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Link? I am almost positive that the seeds are where the action is at.

[AlphaWice]

Dude, its not like you are in a restaurant. you can just add chili powder/chili vinegar/sugar/fish sauce/whatever you want directly into the wok. and there is really no need for banana leaf, etc. (Add the peanuts, or cashews though. Tofu is okay too. I recommend bean sprouts.)