Peruvian Hot Peppers and Dragon Wings

Because of last week's election the temple was open only Saturday morning. In the afternoon we had a very pleasant gathering at the first counselor's apartment for all the senior Norte Americano missionaries and temple missionaries. I volunteered to bring some buffalo wings and RA brought a very fine veggie basket.  I have been in search of hot peppers in Peru for the eight months we have been here, but generally the hottest available are called rocoto. It is from Quechua, one the two predominant indigenous languages of the Andean region of South America, and rendered originally as 'rucutu.' Rocoto have evolved over the millennia and are commercially grown and harvested. Plants can grow to four meters in height, becoming woody and resembling a tree. I would love a rocoto pepper tree in my yard. They handle cold but not freezing temperatures I am certain. Because they do well in cool weather they are popular in Great Britain.

Rocoto plants last for years and resemble bushes to trees

Our favorite rocoto peppers are stuffed Arequipeño style and are made by our friends Brother and Sister Ramos with whom we work in the temple. There are no habeñero peppers in Peru though they apparently  originated here in Pre-ceramic cultures some 8500 years ago in the Peruvian highlands. Habeñero are cousins to the extremely hot Jamaican peppers known as Scotch Bonnet.  When the Spanish came the rocoto were taken to other regions of their empire, to Mexico and the Caribbean.  It is unclear in my preliminary research where the Scotch Bonnet Peppers came from. The Scotch Bonnets are much hotter than anything I have experienced. Rocoto peppers vary greatly in hotness. The hottest here are about equal to the halapeños in spicy hotness or 'piquance.'

Our friends the Ramos brought in dinner and cooked it in our oven.

Rocoto Relleños or stuffed rocotos. The recipes from Arequipa are the very best in Peru.
No Peruvian or Limeño I have talked to takes exception to that generalization. 

In order to make 'hot' sauce for my version of buffalo wings, known as dragon wings, I used nine rocoto peppers, both fried and ground up in the blender to give me something as hot as I could find at two different markets we shop at. Still it was not hot enough, just well in the range of halapeño hot. If people compliment you for your wings and come back for seconds, they are not hot enough. One of the other missionary couples from the temple liked my wings.

Frying up the wings. Note the new 4" smaller waste size  jeans.
Cannot prepare wings too often on our present diets.

During the cooking phase we did have to open the door to the kitchen as the fumes coming off of the pan where the peppers were being seared acted like a sort of police pepper spray with our eyes watering and some coughing and challenge to normal breathing. Likely, it was because of the quantity or mass I was cooking.

The wings and peppers have all come together in the newly
repaired crock pot and will simmer on slow cook for three more hours.

RA's vegetable basket was very well received. She had a very good Ranch flavored dressing to go with it. All of the veggies were washed and rinsed in Clorox water, rinsed again in bottled water. Some of the vegetables were blanched/steamed lightly. Those kinds of precautions are mandatory for vegetables in Peru and not always is it safe for us northern folk to eat lettuce salads at a restaurant, though we still try.

RA's very attractive veggie basket. Peru has wonderful
fresh fruit and vegetables.

A subsequent trip to grocery store, and asking questions in the produce department, netted me some peppers called Aji Limo.  These are more recently cultivated in the Andes and are known for their citrus like flavor in addition to the piquance.  MotherEarth News has a nice writeup about these. They are not however located on the Scoville Chart for spicyness so additional experimentation will have to be carried out. I intend to prepare another batch of my dragon wings and will keep searching for the elusive truly hot Peruvian pepper. Rumor has it that in the jungle there is a small but very hot pepper.

Aji Limo Peppers were enjoyed by the Inca at every meal. Both flavor and its spicy
nature were important to the Inca according to early Spanish chroniclers.  

I have attached a Scoville rating chart for spicyness. The way the chart works is based on the volume of water necessary to reduce the pepper extract to something close to neutral, i.e. no fire when consumed such as Bell Peppers which are "O", having no piquance.

In a future post or addition I report how the Limo Aji Peppers added to the Scoville Index of my dragon wing sauce. The current rating, though very subjective, is probably in the 3,000 to 5,000 range.

UPDATE-- The addition of Aji Limo and Aji Amarillo Peppers to my Rocoto dragon wing sauce has not pushed them into the Jabañero range. Still in the Jalapeño range according to subjective comparisons of the Scoville Index. We are not yet flying supersonic. Stay tuned!