Month: December 2014

FUN

Food: serious heat

What to do when you don’t have the right chile.chile1

You know the drill. You’ve clipped or printed out a recipe that’s supposed to be tonight’s dinner. Except, the grocery store betrays you—not having those few essential items you need – specifically a certain CHILE.  The people at Chile Pepper magazine have substitutes for recipes calling for chili peppers that may be difficult to find. For example, in certain regions, some chiles like cayenne are impossible to find fresh.

The key to finding an adequate chile replacement is knowing its heat level, sweetness, and smokiness. We pooled our resources to come up with a substitution guide for whole chiles. While it focuses on whole fresh or dried chiles, you can always use a hot sauce in lieu of ground chile.

Anaheim: A mild green chile named after the California city, this pepper also goes by the name “California chile” and is often used for chile rellenos; the red strain is called Chile Colorado. Substitution: Canned green chiles or fresh Poblano chiles.

Banana Pepper: The sweet pepper, shaped like its namesake fruit, is also called yellow wax pepper. Substitution: Any mild chile like Anaheim or even bell peppers.

Bhut Jolokia: Also known as Naga Jolokia or ghost chile, this is the world’s hottest chile. Substitution: Red Savina Habanero (lots of them).

Cayenne: A bright red, hot pepper, usually sold dried. Substitution: Chile de Arbol or Guajillo. Crushed red pepper flakes are from cayenne, so it would be the easiest substitute, along with ground cayenne powder.

Chipotle chiles in adobo: The smoked incarnation of the jalapeno that’s mixed with adobo sauce. Substitution: One tablespoon ketchup + 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke + 1 jalapeno.

Habanero: A small, lantern-shaped chile that’s intensely hot. Substitution: Scotch Bonnets or double the dose of jalapenos.

Jalapenos: Smooth, dark green chiles that can vary from medium-hot to hot. Substitution: Half the amount of Serrano chiles.

Pasilla chile: The dried, medium-hot chile also goes by chile negro. Substitution: Ancho chile (sweeter) or Mulato chile (earthier flavor).

Scotch Bonnets: They belong to the same chile variety as the habanero.  Used for jerk chicken in Jamaica. Substitution: Habaneros.

Serrano chiles: A hot, slightly-pointed chile available in various colors. Substitution: Habanero or jalapeno chiles.

Thai chiles: A thin-skinned chile typically found in red and green, popular in numerous Asian dishes. (Bird chile is the name of the dried form; drying the chile gives it the hook shape, similar to a bird’s beak.) Substitution: Fresh or dried cayenne peppers or serrano chiles.

Also, Gourmet Sleuth has a magical solution: just plug in the missing ingredient and the website will spit out a substitution.

Source: Andrea Lynn, senior editor of Chile Pepper magazine.

 

 

 

DESTINATIONS

Travel: the forgotten city of PETRA

PETRA might be thousands of years old but it was recently selected as one of the “New 7 Wonders of the World”!   A well deserved honour.

If the photograph looks familiar it’s because you’ve seen it before in the last scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  The “treasury” serves as a secret temple lost for hundreds of years. In the film’s climactic final scenes, actors Harrison Ford and Sean Connery burst forth from the Siq (the narrow gorge passageway leading in) and walk deep into the labyrinths of the Treasury in their quest to find the Holy Grail. But, as usual, archaeological fact bowed to Hollywood fiction when Indy came to Petra.

Photo: d. king
Photo: d. king

Making the trek to Petra infact feels like you could be in an Indiana Jones movie as the lead up is mysterious but once you’re there it is truly an amazing sight to behold.  Hidden deep in the mountains,  one has to be there in person to really witness it as the ancient place is impossible to capture in normal still photographs. Literally carved directly into vibrant red, white, pink, and sandstone cliff faces, the prehistoric Jordanian city of Petra was “lost” to the Western world.  The City was rediscovered by a young Swiss explorer by the name of Johan Ludwig Burckhardt  in 1812.

I made the trek crossing over from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt (where I was staying) to Eilat in Israel and then over to Petra, in Jordan.  The borders are actually fairly close to each other so it didn’t take as long as it seems – maybe 3 hours.  From Ammn in Jordon we took a bus ride for about two hours along nothing but sand tracks in the desert. Then the fun began; we rode on horseback until we reached the ancient red city carved in rock.  We left our horses there and entered through the very narrow gorge (the Siq, shown in photo above) with a breathtaking view of the building called the “Treasury”.

It is called the “rose red city” for a good  reason.  Temples, tombs and other buildings are all carved out of the red sandstone cliffs.  I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

At its peak the city of Petra was home to some 20,000 Nabataeans who, in the midst of the desert, built an ingenious system of waterways to provide their city with the precious liquid.

Since the early 1800s, when it was “rediscovered,” clues to daily life in this “lost city of stone” are being unearthed and today we are beginning to see once again what Petra looked like 2,000 years ago.

Situated between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, Petra was an important crossroads between Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia. Petra is half-built, half-carved into the rock, and is surrounded by mountains riddled with passages and gorges. It is one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites, where ancient Eastern traditions blend with Hellenistic architecture.

I feel incredibly lucky that I had the opportunity to make this trek and witness in person the physical splendour of this ancient city.