A Tale of Two Chillis

Liz decided one day last week that she was going to cook up a white bean chilli. This is something we've made a few times in the past, and it's really good. In Japan, though, we couldn't get green chillis at our local supermarket so we used a kind of Japanese chilli called shishito. It probably wasn't the right thing to be using, but it worked for us and was nice and mild.

Here, however, the UAE is home to a vast array of different chillis and peppers. We often go to the supermarkets and have no idea what some of the vegetables are. I've always thought I'd like to try them out, and suddenly I had my opportunity. Liz was making the white bean chilli, and we needed green chillis. There are chillis a plenty here, but which ones should be use???!!?

Liz came home with her choice... which turned out to be Thai green chillis, and were far too firey for our chilli needs. So we went back out to a nearby supermarket and I spotted what looked like a milder green chilli. Actually, it was a pack of about ten of them. We decided to try them out. They were much larger than the Thai green chillis, so I imagined they might be milder. When we got home I chopped one up, and tried a bit of the raw chilli... at first it was mild as expected, but then it kicked in... spicy! I told Liz I thought they were a bit spicy, and gave her a small piece to try. For some reason I took another piece for myself (not the most sensible thing to do). It made my tongue even more firey. Liz, however, thought it had no heat at all!! I was so baffled by this that I took an even bigger bit to try (stupid, I know!). This time was the clincher. My mouth became so hot it was like there was a fire burning on my tongue. Then it spread to my lips, which tingled in a painful burning way for the next hour!!! Liz then agreed that they were spicy.
Turns out these were jalepenos. Doh!
Moral of the story is, if you think a chilli is so spicy it's burning your tongue, there is no need to try it again and again until your lips feel like they're melting off due to the fire on your tongue. haha