I thought I knew all the tricks to making a chile pepper less spicy, but really all I knew was this: The capsaicin—that is, the component in chiles that provides the burning sensation—isn't in the seeds of the chile as most people think. It's in the veins. Remove both seedsandveins with a paring knife—wearing gloves!—and you've removed a lot of the chile's burn.
The problem, as a few folks in our test kitchen who tried this trick with a batch of fresh cayenne peppers last week found out, is that sometimes the chiles are still plenty spicy without veins and seeds. To tame them even further, we tried a different trick—we gave them an acid bath.
That sounds a little sadistic, but it's apt. Epi's Kat Sacks had read that soaking chiles in lemon-lime soda—essentially sugary, acidic soda water—can tame the fiercest chile. So she conducted a little test.
First, she sliced each of the seeded and deveined chiles in half. One half would go into the acid bath, the other would remain unbathed, for comparison's sake.
Next, she put four baths together: One with 8 ounces soda water and 1 teaspoon lime juice; one with 8 ounces soda water and 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar; one with 8 ounces lemon-lime soda; and one with 8 ounces of plain soda water (to see if it might be the soda water, not the acid, having the effect).
In went the chiles, and they stayed in their respective solutions for about an hour.
When the hour was up, Kat tasted. The soda water had had no effect. The soda and lime had also had no effect. And the soda with white vinegar? Yup. No effect. Those chiles were all still on fire.
But the chile in lemon-lime soda? All the spiciness was gone.All of it.What was once a fiery chile now tasted like a bell pepper.
Now, I know what you're thinking—who wants a chile that's been soaking in lemon-lime soda? That's a good question, and I have an answer: Nobody.
The good news is that this chile had only a vague sweetness to it, and that sweetness went away entirely when we rinsed the chile under water.
And if you don't have lemon-lime soda around (or if the thought of dunking your chiles in lemon-lime soda grosses you out)? More good news: The chile steeped in soda water and white vinegardideventually lose all its spiciness. It just took another hour (so, two hours total). Yes, that's a long wait for a pepper. Some magic tricks take more time than others.
