caga tio wrote: The habanero is great, especially in Caribbean food,

Doesn't Caribbean cooking use Scotch bonnets? The shops where I live are full of them rather than habaneros, but I think they are closely related.

pldms wrote: Tue Feb 17, 2026 4:33 pm

caga tio wrote: The habanero is great, especially in Caribbean food,

Doesn't Caribbean cooking use Scotch bonnets? The shops where I live are full of them rather than habaneros, but I think they are closely related.

You are right! I always assumed it was habanero based on how the heat hit but looking around online, the Scotch Bonnet is the pepper of choice for Caribbean food.

I had an actual hot jalapeno come out of my fridge the other day. Mostly they taste like green peppers now, to the point that I always leave the seeds and pith in, but I always check with a little nibble before I start cooking. Glad I did.

If you can moderate the heat, as in a jerk sauce, the fruity, lingering habanero and Scotch Bonnet flavor is just delightful and I prefer it to jalapenos. Don't use them nearly as often though.

Y'all covered the bases here, I appreciate the serrano shout outs. One side bar, I often enjoyed the anaheim pepper when I wanted something halfway between a bell pepper and a mild jalapeno. It was cool to find a pepper that's the lowest setting on the 'discernible spice' scale although some randomly have none at all. Probably has a lot of potential uses in the raw due to it's subtle hint of a kick.

Crap! All chili peppers are for the birds. I don't want to eat something with the flavor profile of a murder hornet. That said, a couple of weeks ago I made a delicious pot of mulligatawny and used one serrano because I wanted to follow the exact recipe and live dangerously. Made sure to scrape out all of its hornet-y insides. It was fine.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DT7vrA1D ... JieDBnYW1w

I did not know this. Wish I were a birb

joelb wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 9:32 amI had an actual hot jalapeno come out of my fridge the other day. Mostly they taste like green peppers now, to the point that I always leave the seeds and pith in, but I always check with a little nibble before I start cooking. Glad I did.

FM Tree was explaining to me that there was some jabroni in California that was cultivating a milder jalapeno for the soft-ass American palette. I kinda switched to serrano to keep the heat, but if you find ones that come from Mexico, those will be spicy like they are supposed to be. Our local Tony's gets the Mexican ones, so I'm set. As to the poll, Jalapeno, but I use any and all peppers that look good in my cooking. Fresh, dried, ground in all varieties. NC.

caga tio wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 9:09 am

pldms wrote: Tue Feb 17, 2026 4:33 pm

caga tio wrote: The habanero is great, especially in Caribbean food,

Doesn't Caribbean cooking use Scotch bonnets? The shops where I live are full of them rather than habaneros, but I think they are closely related.

You are right! I always assumed it was habanero based on how the heat hit but looking around online, the Scotch Bonnet is the pepper of choice for Caribbean food.

I was just in the virgin islands as this thread was going strong so I paid closer attention the hot sauces, which these days seem to use a lot of ghost, reaper and scorpion for the heat which surprised me because overall they weren't especially hot.

This is my fav hot sauce, and it uses habs:
https://stjohnspice.com/products/valley ... inal-sauce