Taming the Heat, controlling the "heat" trough culinary methods and the help of science

That is what I called this chapter of the project back in '05. By taming the heat I mean been able to "extract" or pull out the heat of hot peppers with the ultimate goal of tasting the pepper without burning. That is what I which when I taste an amazing flavourful pepper like a Habanero or Scotch Bonette, yes the heat is enjoyable for some of us but it does tend to overpower other flavors and hence a dish...How can I get more Habanero flavor into a dish without adding more and more of it's heat? Can I make a Habanero be heat less or less hot? those are some of the questions that drive this project.


Fallowing this line of thinking is that I started experimenting on taming the heat, at first by using culinary logic...so I took some hot peppers, the most inoffensive ones first (to control the personal damage)like serranos and jalapenos. First thing that came to mind was to peel the outer flesh of the peppers and taste that, uff ! mild, hell! not even hot , just green grassy pepper flavor (that's what I previously though in one of those moments of enligthtement) so it was confirmed that if I did not touch the inner membrane, "ribs" or seeds of the pepper I could get rid of the heat aka capsaicin.

Now that just sounds too easy as its the case with a nice fleshy pepper but what about the thin skin peppers like habaneros ? or peppers that are so small that their is almost no distinction between was skin, flesh, ribs or seed? or the ones where the ribs and seed run the whole length of the pepper? more questions came around. We still have not cook the peppers, Have you ever chop a Habanero and saute it in hot pan? and all of the sudden you got to run for it with crying eyes, loose nose and even some heavy coughing...well that's just not fun.

So what about letting science help us a bit?
I though. Doing some research I found that Casein acts a "soap" when encounter with Capsicin so that may be a solution...I also talk to a few expert in the area and heard that alcohol, sugar and even hazelnut can help me in my quest. This are experiments i will be conducting this fall with the help of some of our hottest peppers in my roof garden.