Little Italian Pepper

[B'sgirl]

Several years ago the guy I was dating at the time made me this delicious spaghetti sauce. He learned how to make it in Italy and it had this skinny, red, dried pepper about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long. It was a pretty hot pepper (his friends dared me to eat one whole) but not too hot. It made the sauce just spicy enough to clear your sinuses out a bit. I really want to make this sauce for my family but I can't remember what the pepper is called. Does anyone know?

[QSis]

Take a look at some of the photos of peppers on this link, B'sgirl Google Image Result for http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/hot_pepper_japanese.jpg

I've grown Thai hots before, which are small, long, skinny red peppers and have dried them. They are pretty hot, though.

See if anything jogs your memory.

Lee

[GotGarlic]

Originally Posted by B'sgirl

Several years ago the guy I was dating at the time made me this delicious spaghetti sauce. He learned how to make it in Italy and it had this skinny, red, dried pepper about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long. It was a pretty hot pepper (his friends dared me to eat one whole) but not too hot. It made the sauce just spicy enough to clear your sinuses out a bit. I really want to make this sauce for my family but I can't remember what the pepper is called. Does anyone know?

It sounds like a serrano pepper that was allowed to mature to red. Here's a visual guide to peppers: Visual guide to peppers

And here's a recipe for the sauce: Recipes : Arrabbiata Sauce : Food Network

HTH.

[Caine]

Use the same pepper pods you would use to make Kung Pao chicken. Those are the same type of pepper you get when you buy crushed red pepper in a shaker jar.

[B'sgirl]

Ooh, thanks! Especially for the recipe! It could be one of the capsicum peppers (one of those is used in the Kung Pao so you must be right, Caine). I swear the name was something like Perichino, but they guy was fluent in Italian, he may not know an English term for it. But I think I'll see if I can find a capsicum and give it a try and I'll post how it goes.