Balancing Heat & Flavor

By Jason R. Gronlund

Combinations of sweet vegetables, like bell peppers with spicy ingredients like chile flakes or pastes—or even full pods, to add a bolder element—can give new life to pasta entrées and side dishes. Photo: Mcllhenny Company/TABASCO® brand products

As trends progress and consumers look for spicier foods that deliver more flavor, product developers must be aware that just adding a chile pepper to the mix is not usually the best route to success. Like the artist to the canvas, the proper balance has to temper the delivery. Knowing a little about how spicy ingredients will react in different products will help you better understand what you will deliver in the end product.

Unfortunately, no universal benchmark for “hot” exists. What one person sees as hot, the next guy may call wimpy. When developing products, I always try to look at the target consumer demographics for the product and whether that target consumer will be able to—or want to—finish what is considered as a full portion. Also, would they want to purchase the product again?

As the old culinary saying goes, you can always add, but you cannot take away. The consumer can bolster the heat if they see fit. The worst thing you can do is offend someone by excess heat built into a product. You do not want the consumer to ask themselves, “Is this dinner or a dare?”

The fruit of the spicy types is commonly called “chile pepper” or just “chile” or “pepper” in Great Britain and the United States. Residents of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand might also use the terms “chilli” or “chillie” interchangeably with “chile.” Chiles are used fresh and, when used as species, are dried and used whole or ground—alone, or in combination with other flavoring agents.

C. frutescens includes the tabasco peppers used in TABASCO® brand sauces and other ingredients, as well as the cayenne chile used in may types of ground red pepper. C. annuum not only comprises the common sweet bell peppers, but also jalapeños, chiltepins (sometimes called “bird peppers” due to birds’ affinity for the fruit; birds are not affected by capsaicin), pasilla negro and guajillo. C. chinense includes the incredibly hot habanero, Scotch bonnet and naga jolokia chiles; naga chiles are common to India and might be the world’s hottest chiles, with a recorded Scoville heat unit (SHU) rating of 855,000. Other types of chiles include the C. pubescens (rocoto) and C. baccatum (aji), both of which hail primarily from South America.

The tabasco pepper is best known through its use in TABASCO sauce, a trademarked product manufactured by McIlhenny Company, Avery Island, LA. Even though the word “tabasco” is the name of a Mexican state and the peppers that carry the name likely originated in that country, this pepper was first grown in large quantities in Louisiana. Its red color is partly due to its high vitamin A content.

Chile-pepper heat varies greatly— even within the same species and variety —depending on many factors, including the climate, soil and geographical location in which they’re grown, as well as their stage of maturity when harvested. A green, unripe pepper is typically not as sweet or hot as a red, ripe pepper.

The heat comes from capsaicinoids, compounds found mostly in the pepper’s membranes and in the seeds. Capsaicin is the main capsaicinoid in chiles. Different chiles have varying levels and types of capsaicinoids, variables that contribute to the different heat levels in the fruit.

Capsaicin oil has virtually no flavor or odor, and historically was difficult to measure. This led to Wilbur Scoville’s development of the Scoville organoleptic test in 1912. This taste-testing panel sampled chile extracts dissolved in sugar water in increasing concentrations until detected and rated them. It has now been replaced with instruments like high-performance liquid chromatography that measure the actual levels of capsaicinoids.

More hot numbers

The popular tabasco pepper and its cayenne cousins—both members of Capsicum frutescens—find use in a dizzying array of hot sauces and spices. The dried, whole pods add heat to Szechwan cuisine. Photo: Mcllhenny Company/TABASCO® brand products

Mustard’s heat comes from its oils, which are only released from the mustard seed after crushing. When the chemicals and enzymes—including glucosinolates—in the mustard oils combine with water, isothiocyanates are released, which give mustard its heat. If you mix dry mustard with water, the paste’s heat starts slowly and increases to its hottest level after about 10 to 15 minutes. Depending on the type of mustard and other variables, the seed contains about 0.6% to 1.0% isothiocyanates. Horseradish and wasabi roots also release isothiocyanates when processed. These two roots have similar qualities, but are different plant species. Unless horseradish root is mixed with vinegar right after grating—or immediately consumed —it will quickly lose its pungency. Horseradish finds a number of uses in condiments such as ketchup, mustard and imitation wasabi, which is often a mix of horseradish, mustard, spices and green food coloring.

Real wasabi (W. japonica is most common) can command a steep price, so imitation products are more common in the United States and Japan. Similar to mixing dried mustard with water, when first grated, fresh wasabi root does not yet have its renowned pungency—about 10 minutes later it will develop its full heat.

Real wasabi not only delivers a sometimes-startling pungency, but also has a slightly floral, sweet, melon-type note. Wasabi’s heat hits the sinuses faster than chiles, but also dissipates faster than the sometimes-lingering heat of chiles. Although wasabi (whether real or imitation) is most famous for its role as a complement to sushi and sashimi—along with soy sauce—it also has found a role in some American snack foods, like wasabi peas.

When it comes to sourcing ingredients, existing manufacturing capabilities may limit the types of ingredients that you can use. But suppliers offer a wide variety to meet most every need. Fresh, puréed, individually quick frozen (IQF) and dried pods are the most common. You can also find powders, Aquaresins® and oleoresins, but not with as wide of a variety of different types as the other ingredient forms supply.

Both pasilla negro and guajillo— along with ancho—are sometimes used in mole sauce, while guajillo chiles add heat and flavor to harissa, a spicy Tunisian sauce used to flavor couscous, soups and stews. Poblano chiles are a staple for stuffed chiles, like chiles rellenos.

Chipotle peppers have burst on to the culinary scene and are here to stay. Their smoky flavor is actually a result of their preservation. The Aztecs cultivated the jalapeño. As with most peppers, they start off green, then go yellow and, at the end of the season, become red. The Aztecs attempted to air dry this red pepper, but the chiles’ thick skin made them rot long before they would dry. They finally tried smoking as the preservation method, and this worked. As a result, chipotles have a rich, smoky flavor, which attracts today’s consumer.

Blending this smoky attribute is the key to having a well-balanced product. It’s also important to remember that a chile ingredient’s Scoville rating can vary depending on whether you use a paste, powder, dry pods or wet pods, such as in an application like adobo. Blending the chile ingredients with fats helps disperse the flavors and heat. Vacuum tumbling with chipotle can cause some issues, as the smoke is so aromatic that it dominates the rest of the flavors and gives a strong, smoky flavor to meat, particularly poultry— even to the point of it tasting like ham. We have yet to find a way around this problem. Chipotle’s rich flavor backs well against other rich flavors, like those in demi-glace and moles, giving products a full, rich flavor that can be balanced even further with full-flavor herbs and spices.

The cayenne pepper, when made into a sauce like Buffalo, has taken the chicken wing from zero to hero. This is one of the most-prominent and familiar spicy flavors for today’s consumer. This is good in some ways, and bad in others. If a product designer uses cayenne in too high of a volume in the formulation of other products, the flavor profile can begin to resemble wing sauce, which may not be desirable. If that’s the case, another pepper may need consideration.

The über-hot habanero and Scotch bonnet are the kings of the test of heat tolerance, but these peppers have a great, sweet flavor when balanced against ingredients with complementary flavors. For example, they work well in fruit chutneys, which have a great balance of sweet and heat. Also, a habanero sauce balanced with banana, tamarinds and other fruit can give a great fruity flavor with a very low Scoville rating. More recognizable in the Latin and Caribbean cuisines, these peppers have a myriad of uses in other products. Remember that this pepper likes a sweet home and will do well with a balance of select spices—particularly aromatic spices—and sweet ingredients.

Many differences exist between the large number of available chiles. Over time, I recommend you taste them all so you can familiarize yourself with the nuances of each.

While speaking at a conference, I was asked how an American branded product like Tabasco sauce fits in over there. Although it is on every table in every pizza and pasta place in Korea, the question was asked in the context of their traditional food.

I explained that the first thing they had to do was stop looking at the brand and where the product comes from. I then asked three simple questions. Do you use vinegar in your cooking? (Why, yes we do.) Do use fermented products in your cooking? (Why, yes we do.) Do you use chile peppers in your food? (Why, yes we do.) That is why the Korean customer is so attracted to the sauce—it has all the flavor profiles they find in their native foods.

Two non-Asian ethnic preparations —that each work well as either a sauce or a marinade—that provide a great balance of heat and flavor are chermoula from Morocco, used in the preparation of meat and seafood, and chimichurri, which looks similar to pesto and is used with grilled meats in many Latin American countries. These sauces—including the balance of spicy and flavorful ingredients—might form the basis of new products in the U.S. market, including bottled sauces and marinades. Premarinated, ready-to-cook meats might also find an audience in light of the recent interest in regional ethnic foods.

First, make sure that you taste the product in its final state. If the sauce is designed for a burger, taste it on a burger—not just by itself. Many times I have tasted products that are great alone, but once put into the build, the other components will drop the flavor substantially. For instance, in a high-fat meat or cheese, the fat can encapsulate the capsaicin, and the sauce will not deliver the same heat profile as when tasted alone. The starch in bread and the water in vegetables will also net similar results in dropping the flavor profile. A product will need to deliver flavor for all the items in the sandwich. Some hot sauces can accomplish that with higher acid levels due to high vinegar content and full flavors.

Sometimes, product designers need not think as far outside the box as they may fear. Consider how you would blend different herbs for flavor. Chiles can return the same results once we understand how they can add flavor.

Would you think it appropriate to add chiles to apple-pie filling? Let’s take a deeper look at why this can work. Most apple-pie fillings have common spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Adding milder, sweeter chiles— such as Anaheim—at a low level enhances the cinnamon to give it that hotter flavor, and the consumer will not be able to place their finger on why it tastes like that! Sweet heat is well received by today’s consumer and will continue long into the future.

This is not a new concept by any means. We have seen black-pepper ice cream, as well as jalapeño and habanero sorbets and ice creams. In most cases, these do not require much of a formulation change, as the amount of chile required to achieve the desired flavor is small and will not adversely affect the other components. For example, we use only 1 oz. of TABASCO brand Habanero Pepper Sauce to 1 gal. of vanilla ice cream mix for a simple, spicy ice cream. You can add ancho peppers, with their deep, rich flavor, to a 55% cocoa chocolate with some cinnamon to get a Mayan flavor. Or combine pasilla and guajillo peppers with a bittersweet chocolate for a unique flavor. Habaneros and green jalapeños work great in sweeter applications like sorbets, granitas (Italian ices), ice creams and even some bread puddings.

Pretty much everyone loves varying degrees of spicy food, and finding that unique flavor and balance is always a treasure. It always helps to explore cuisines and see what defines them— how each balances spices and herbs with heat-inducing components like chiles. Once you have a understanding of these concepts, you can use this knowledge to build products using components of each and develop that next big flavor. As you explore markets and restaurants, try items that are marked as spicy or hot so you can see what the competition is saying is hot and what the market will bear as far as consumer acceptance for hot.

The last thing you want is to be at either end of the spectrum and get dismissed for being too mild or too hot. Remember: The consumer can bolster, but cannot take away!

Jason R. Gronlund is the executive chef and director of culinary services, ingredient sales, for McIlhenny Company and TABASCO® brand Products, which is headquartered in Avery Island, LA, and is a member of the Research Chefs Association.

Chermoula

This spicy Moroccan marinade works well for both meat and seafood. The aromatic cinnamon and nutmeg, spicy-sweet ginger, and aromatic and slightly nutty cumin—as well as the green, flavorful contribution of the fresh herbs—help balance the spice of the habanero-pepper sauce. The preparation below is suited to use with 8 lbs. of meat or seafood, which will yield 20 portions.

Recipe:

Ingredients

14 cup finely chopped garlic
2 cups chopped fresh cilantro 1 cup chopped Italian parsley 2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons ground ginger
12 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons saffron threads steeped in 1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon mild paprika 1 tablespoon TABASCO® brand Habanero Pepper Sauce
112 tablespoons sea salt
112 cups olive oil

Procedure:Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix together until all is evenly blended. Place in an airtight container for at least 8 hours before use. Use to marinate meat or seafood, covered, for up to 12 hours or longer, depending on the type of meat or seafood used. Reserve some of the unused marinade to serve alongside the finished product. Grill, roast or pan-sear the meat or seafood and serve with a side of the chermoula sauce.

Chimichurri

This traditional Argentine preparation is used as a marinade for meat, as well as a sauce to accompany grilled meat. Fresh herbs help balance the bite of the chimichurri contributed by the vinegar and chiles in the pepper sauce. The procedure below will make 4 gal. of product.

Recipe:

Ingredients

2 gal. finely chopped Italian parsley
3 qts. finely chopped cilantro
6 cups finely chopped fresh thyme
3 cups finely diced onion
2 gal. olive oil
2 cups finely chopped garlic
2 cups fresh lemon juice
1 cup fresh lime juice
2 cups salt
4 cups TABASCO® brand Green Pepper Sauce

Procedure:Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and whisk together until well blended. Place in an airtight container for at least 8 hours before use. Use to marinate steak and/or baste grilled meats. Unused marinade can be served as a sauce alongside grilled meats.