This is from Julie Sahni's _Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking_:

Beware of this delicacy, for it can be shockingly hot to the unprepared
palate.

You can substitute green beans, yellow wax beans, lima beans, fresh
black-eyed peas, sweet green peas, asparagus, carrots, or shallots of equal
quantity for the okra.

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
4 dry red chile pods
1 1/2 teaspoons yellow split peas
1 tablespoon split white gram beans ("urad dal")
3 cups water
2 teaspoons tamarind paste
1/3 teaspoon ground asafetida ("hing")
3 tablespoons light vegetable oil or light sesame oil
1 pound okra, tops trimmed and left whole or cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste

1. Put the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, chile pods,
yellow split peas, and split white gram beans into a lightly-greased skillet
over medium-high heat. Roast the spices, shaking and tossing, until they
turn several shades darker, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a small plate,
cool completely, and grind to a fine powder using a spice grinder.

2. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the tamarind paste,
ground asafetida, and the ground spice powder, and mix well. Lower the heat
and cook the sauce at a simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

3. While the sauce is cooking, heat the oil in a large frying pan. When the
oil is hot, add the okra. Fry the okra, turning and tossing, until covered
with several brown streaks, regulating the heat between medium and high,
about 9-10 minutes. Turn off heat.

4. Add the fried okra to the sauce and continue cooking for another 4
minutes. Add the cornstarch slurry and cook until the sauce thickens. Turn
off heat and add salt to taste.

Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature. Keeps well covered in the
refrigerator for 2 days.

BOB'S NOTES:

1. I substituted carrots for the okra.
2. I puréed the sauce before adding the cornstarch. After all, I was using
it as a dipping sauce for samosas, and a chunky sauce just wouldn't work as
well.
3. If you have trouble finding asafetida, you can substitute 2 cloves of
garlic paste (either pressed, pounded in a mortar, or scraped on a board),
though the substitution is NOT authentic (for religious/superstitious
reasons).
4. I don't have a 1/3 teaspoon measure, so I used a scant half-teaspoon of
asafetida.


Bob

Bob Terwilliger wrote:
Beware of this delicacy, for it can be shockingly hot to the unprepared
palate.

4 dry red chile pods

There are 17,000 kinds of chile peppers. Most of which turn red when
ripe and all of which can be dried.

However, the spiciness of them is nearly 6 orders of magnitude in
range.*

So, naturally, if you don't say what kind of pepper to use, it will in
some cases be shockingly hot - or sadly bland - to any palate.

--Blair

* - theoretically for capsaicin, log(16000000) = 7.204; for measured
values of naturally occurring peppers, log(855000) = 5.932

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
Bob Terwilliger wrote:
Beware of this delicacy, for it can be shockingly hot to the unprepared
palate.

4 dry red chile pods

There are 17,000 kinds of chile peppers. Most of which turn red when
ripe and all of which can be dried.

However, the spiciness of them is nearly 6 orders of magnitude in
range.*

So, naturally, if you don't say what kind of pepper to use, it will in
some cases be shockingly hot - or sadly bland - to any palate.

--Blair

* - theoretically for capsaicin, log(16000000) = 7.204; for measured
values of naturally occurring peppers, log(855000) = 5.932

The hottest I've ever heard of were Red Savina habaneros, which came
in at 580,000. There's one that's 855,000 now?

Have you ever used Pure Cap? Great for adding heat w/o altering
flavor. It is right around 500,000.

--Bryan

Food Snob wrote:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:
* - theoretically for capsaicin, log(16000000) = 7.204; for measured
values of naturally occurring peppers, log(855000) = 5.932

The hottest I've ever heard of were Red Savina habaneros, which came
in at 580,000. There's one that's 855,000 now?

Maybe, maybe not. The "Naga Jolokia" was reported to be 855,000, but
apparently it's been declared unverified:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/assam_chile2.asp

The verified range now seems to be up to 300,000, and the Red Savina
only comes in at about 260,000:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/heatlevels2001.html

Have you ever used Pure Cap? Great for adding heat w/o altering
flavor. It is right around 500,000.

Must be a brand name. Pure capsaicin is 16 million Scovilles.^ If I
want to add heat without altering flavor I'll use cayenne, but I never
want to add heat without altering flavor.

--Blair

^ - The human tongue is on average sensitive to 60 ppb capsaicin
in water*, or roughly 1 part in 16 million by weight.**

Thus, one gram of pure capsaicin is barely detectable in
16,000 liters of water (16 cubic meters; a circular
pool 4 feet deep and 13 feet across).

The "Scoville" rating of a pepper can be interpreted as the
amount of water that must be added to 1 gram of fruit paste
(including skin, flesh, membrane, and seeds) to reach the
minimum level of detectability of the sensation of "heat".
If the fruit is pure capsaicin, that number is 16 million
grams of water. If the fruit is 1 part capsaicin in 16
million parts fruit by weight, that number is 1 gram water.

So in general the Scoville rating can be scaled to give
parts per million, the concentration of capsaicin
to total weight.

For example, a jalapeno at 5000 Scovilles is 5000/16000000
or 300 ppm***. 300 ppm of 1 pound (454 grams) is 100
milligrams***. Thus the total weight of capsaicin in a pound
of jalapenos is about a tenth of a gram. Added to 9 lbs of
tomatoes this would make a sauce with 10 milligrams per
pound, or 30 ppm, or 500 Scovilles.

The American Spice Trade Association has improved the
measurement method for capsaicin to measure the chemical
concentration with a chromatograph rather than relying on
tasters, and gives values for it directly in ppm. If you
see an ASTA rating, multiply by 16 and you will know the
Scoville rating. Inversely, divide the Scoville rating by 16
to get the ppm concentration.

* - sugar water, actually.

** - however, when comparisons against control samples are
made, the tongue can tell the two apart when the one with
capsaicin is at a concentration of 1 part in 26 million or
about 40 ppb.

*** - no method of measuring concentration of capsaicin has
ever been better than 12% accurate (Scoville's method had a
50% range, reflecting the tolerances of the human tongue and
various testers' tastes), so the numbers given are never
better than 1 significant figure, and we should round our
result number to 1 significant figure as well, making it
about 300 ppm. Similarly, we will round 141 mg to 100 mg
when we calculate the weight of capsaicin as
454*5000/16000000.

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
Food Snob wrote:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:
* - theoretically for capsaicin, log(16000000) = 7.204; for measured
values of naturally occurring peppers, log(855000) = 5.932

The hottest I've ever heard of were Red Savina habaneros, which came
in at 580,000. There's one that's 855,000 now?

Maybe, maybe not. The "Naga Jolokia" was reported to be 855,000, but
apparently it's been declared unverified:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/assam_chile2.asp

The verified range now seems to be up to 300,000, and the Red Savina
only comes in at about 260,000:

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/heatlevels2001.html

Have you ever used Pure Cap? Great for adding heat w/o altering
flavor. It is right around 500,000.

Must be a brand name.

It is. The only ingredients are vegetable oil and oleoresin capsaicin.

Pure capsaicin is 16 million Scovilles.^ If I
want to add heat without altering flavor I'll use cayenne, but I never
want to add heat without altering flavor.

Cayenne is not flavorless. Far from it.

--Blair

--Bryan

Bob,
Did you like this as a dipping sauce for the samosas? I ask this
question because this is a traditional South Indian dish eaten with rice
with a lot of sesame oil poured on top to temper the heat or eaten a
little bit at a time with plain steamed rice mixed with full fat yogurt.
I would not have thought it would pair well with samosas, but I have
never tried it with them either - North-South Indian fusion cusine I
guess :-)

- Kamala.


Bob Terwilliger wrote:
This is from Julie Sahni's _Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking_:

Beware of this delicacy, for it can be shockingly hot to the unprepared
palate.

You can substitute green beans, yellow wax beans, lima beans, fresh
black-eyed peas, sweet green peas, asparagus, carrots, or shallots of equal
quantity for the okra.

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
4 dry red chile pods
1 1/2 teaspoons yellow split peas
1 tablespoon split white gram beans ("urad dal")
3 cups water
2 teaspoons tamarind paste
1/3 teaspoon ground asafetida ("hing")
3 tablespoons light vegetable oil or light sesame oil
1 pound okra, tops trimmed and left whole or cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste

1. Put the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, chile pods,
yellow split peas, and split white gram beans into a lightly-greased skillet
over medium-high heat. Roast the spices, shaking and tossing, until they
turn several shades darker, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a small plate,
cool completely, and grind to a fine powder using a spice grinder.

2. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the tamarind paste,
ground asafetida, and the ground spice powder, and mix well. Lower the heat
and cook the sauce at a simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

3. While the sauce is cooking, heat the oil in a large frying pan. When the
oil is hot, add the okra. Fry the okra, turning and tossing, until covered
with several brown streaks, regulating the heat between medium and high,
about 9-10 minutes. Turn off heat.

4. Add the fried okra to the sauce and continue cooking for another 4
minutes. Add the cornstarch slurry and cook until the sauce thickens. Turn
off heat and add salt to taste.

Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature. Keeps well covered in the
refrigerator for 2 days.

BOB'S NOTES:

1. I substituted carrots for the okra.
2. I puréed the sauce before adding the cornstarch. After all, I was using
it as a dipping sauce for samosas, and a chunky sauce just wouldn't work as
well.
3. If you have trouble finding asafetida, you can substitute 2 cloves of
garlic paste (either pressed, pounded in a mortar, or scraped on a board),
though the substitution is NOT authentic (for religious/superstitious
reasons).
4. I don't have a 1/3 teaspoon measure, so I used a scant half-teaspoon of
asafetida.


Bob

Kamala wrote:

Did you like this as a dipping sauce for the samosas? I ask this question
because this is a traditional South Indian dish eaten with rice with a lot
of sesame oil poured on top to temper the heat or eaten a little bit at a
time with plain steamed rice mixed with full fat yogurt. I would not have
thought it would pair well with samosas, but I have never tried it with
them either - North-South Indian fusion cusine I guess :-)

As I wrote, in order to make it a better dipping sauce, I used carrots
instead of okra and I pureed the sauce. Made that way it had a good flavor
and it went well with the samosas.

Bob