Jalapeño

• jalapeño

  Spanish — Mexico

  A smoked, dried jalapeño is a chipotle, sold under that name rather than as a form of jalapeño.

Grassy and vegetal with a clean, moderate heat that arrives quickly and fades. The thick flesh gives it substance — a jalapeño is something you bite, not merely a source of heat.

Fresh, green and vegetal, with a bright capsicum smell and none of the dried-fruit character of an aged chilli.

Glossy mid-green when picked, ripening through to deep red. Corky pale striations appear on mature fruit.

Thick-walled, crisp and juicy — unusual among chillies and the reason it stuffs and slices well where thinner varieties collapse.

• Capsaicin — The pungency, concentrated in the placenta rather than the seeds.
• Pyrazines — The green, vegetal aroma of the unripe fruit — and the thing that disappears on ripening, which is much of why chipotle tastes nothing like this.

Remove the placental tissue and seeds to reduce heat substantially; leave them in to keep it. Char over a flame or under a grill until blackened for cooked salsas — the difference between raw and charred jalapeño is larger than most people expect and is the cheapest improvement available to a salsa. Wash hands and board afterwards, and be aware capsaicin persists on skin for hours.

A fresh chilli first and a spice second. Sliced raw into salsas and on tacos, charred for cooked salsas, stuffed and battered, sliced and pickled, and simmered into sauces. Its moderate heat and thick flesh make it the chilli most people can eat whole, and its green vegetal character is what it contributes — a quality entirely absent from its smoked descendant. It works with tomato, lime, coriander leaf, corn, cheese, pork and beans.

• toasting — Charring or roasting collapses the flesh, sweetens it and adds smoke — the standard preparation for salsas, and the closest fresh jalapeño gets to chipotle without being smoked.
• boiling — Simmering in a sauce softens the flesh and disperses the heat evenly. Pungency is heat-stable and does not cook off.
• frying — Sliced and fried, it holds its shape better than thinner chillies and retains some crispness.

Firmness. A fresh jalapeño is taut and squeaks slightly under pressure; one that yields softly has gone. Colour turning red in the fridge is ripening rather than spoilage and is harmless.

• Soft or wrinkled skin
• Brown soft patches
• Any visible mould
• A fermented smell

• Moisture loss and shrivelling
• Mould and soft rot on fruit held damp — the genuine safety case here
• Loss of the green pyrazine aroma as the fruit ripens in storage

Buy fresh, and treat pickled as a separate ingredient rather than a convenience version. Neither is a substitute for chipotle, and reaching for chipotle when a recipe wants fresh jalapeño swaps a green vegetal note for a smoky dried-fruit one — a bigger change than the shared name suggests.

• Firm, taut, glossy fruit with no soft patches.
• Heavy for its size, indicating thick flesh.
• Striations if you want a more mature, often hotter fruit; smooth skin if you do not.
• Red fruit where you want sweetness rather than green freshness.

Graded on size, firmness and colour as a fresh vegetable rather than on a spice grading scheme. Striations mark maturity and are a preference rather than a defect.

Solanaceae

A compact annual bearing thick-walled fruits some five to nine centimetres long, picked green in the great majority of commercial production.

Mexico, and specifically Veracruz — the name comes from Xalapa, the state capital.

• Mexico — origin
• United States — major producer
• China — notable producer

Picked green at full size for fresh sale, which is most of the crop. Fruit left on the plant ripens through to red and is worth substantially more per kilo — that red fruit is what becomes chipotle, so the harvest decision determines which of two products the grower is making.

1. Picking green — Fruits are picked at full size while still green.Why: The bulk of production, sold fresh or pickled.
2. Ripening on the plant — A portion is left to ripen to red over several further weeks.Why: Ripening raises the sugars and changes the flavour; it is the precondition for chipotle.
3. Pickling — Green fruit is commonly sliced and pickled in brine with vinegar and aromatics.

Graded on size, colour, firmness and the presence of corky striations. The striations are a maturity marker and a matter of taste rather than a defect.

Grown as an annual from transplanted seedlings, with repeated picking over a long season. Modern cultivars have been selected for milder heat and for the corky striations that mark a mature fruit.

Warm growing season with reliable water. Water stress raises capsaicin measurably, so the same cultivar varies in heat between seasons and growers.

A Mexican cultivar named for Xalapa in Veracruz, long grown in the region and now among the most widely cultivated chillies in the world — largely through its adoption into American food, where the pickled slice is close to ubiquitous.

Traded overwhelmingly as a fresh and pickled vegetable rather than as a dried spice, which puts it in a different commercial category from most of this dataset.