Homemade Sausage Making

consider the difference between fresh basil on tomatoes and the dried stuff from last year. Or the use of fresh rosemary in a stew.

I know what you're saying but I actually don't have a very good frame of referance to compare it to. I'm thinking the taste of the spices will be more pronounced which is alright by me.

Fresh spice is always better.

I dried and ground the four varieties of chilies today. Six ounce packages of dried pods seem to make 6 to 8 ounces of volume when ground.
This is a good picture of what they look like stemed and seeded.

Looking good! Are you tasting the subtle differnces in the varieties? I noticed one of my grinds even had a smokey smell to them.

I can smell the differences and they are profound. Some of them seem to be a bit sour all of them are mildly hot but not painful.

That's what I'm noticing too. I ground some "paprika" today - seeds and all - with some St. Martins and some baby red bell peppers and its got a beautiful rich deep red color with a little bite to it. I think I'll call it "mexican paprika".

ssorllih wrote:Fresh spice is always better.

Actually, not always true, as your experiments with peppers will show. Some of the best recipes wouldn't be possible without dried peppers, roasted to bring out the flavor.

...and boy-oh-boy do I look forward to the results of this particular experiment! This is gonna be great.
(We need a salivating smiley!)

Hello.

Gulyás is Hungarian for goulash.

I was born in Hungary. A also grow some peppers, the famous szegedi too. The reason for adding some seeds, is because it has oil in it.
When You grind it, the color gets nicer.

I've been leaving all my seeds in for no other reason but that I'm lazy. I'm glad there is some benefit to leaving them in.

I think they recommend leaving about 10 % of the seeds in, if more, it gets whiter. Most of the time it does not matter in the home made ones.
One have to be careful, if baked too much, it becomes bitter. Like baking sausage, or pl. making stew,after frying onions.

In 6 ounces of chili's there is about two tablespoons full of seeds. Some varieties are sticky on the inside and some are very smooth with the sticky kinds that seeds don't dump out easily and with the others the seeds pour out easily.
Some varieties have only a little heat and some are fiery. The flavors of each are distinct.
I think that if you want a particular flavor and also some heat that you would use a blend of two or more varieties.

Here is an idea. I have kept all of the seed separate and labeled. the seed can now be ground and added to the recpe as another ingredient. Just as mace and nutmeg come from the same piece of fruit. Mace is the husk and nutmeg the kernal.

wikipedia reports that there is no capsaicin in pepper seed but that there is a higher level in the white tissue that supports the seed.

That's interesting. Not to argue but just to point out something. If this is totally correct then why are red pepper flakes hot since they are just seeds right?