Cooking with fire: Chile tepins are hotter than Hades

If you think Yuma’s hotter than Hades, you should eat some chile tepins. Then you’d really know what hot is.

The pungent little peppers pack a lot of heat, but they also pack a lot of flavor. Dried, crushed and added to a few other ingredients, they make a delicious salsa.

Resembling small, round, bright red berries when ripe, chile tepins (tee-PEENS) grow wild in the South Texas brush country, where I learned the hard way not to touch them.

I was 4 years old, and my family was visiting some friends who had trained some of the wild pepper bushes to grow like vines up trellises on the front porch of their home. While visiting on the porch in the shade of the lush, green chile plants, I was told not to touch the chiles because they would burn me.

But when no one was looking, I touched one with the tip of my finger, and it didn’t burn me. So I secretly played with the bright, satiny peppers that looked like tiny red Christmas lights.

At some point I must have rubbed my eyes because I was jolted by a stabbing pain deep inside my eyes. I could not see, and I screamed until I could not hear anything.

When I emerged from that awful silence, I was exhausted. I was propped up on a cot in front of an evaporative cooler with a cool, wet cloth covering my aching eyes. Somebody hand-fed me pieces of sweet, ice cold watermelon, which distracted me from my agony.

It’s no wonder that capsaicin (cap-say-IH-sin), the compound that makes peppers hot and causes pain, is used as a form of ammunition in pepper spray. Ironically, capsaicin is also used as a pain reliever to treat minor aches, sprains, arthritis pain and nerve pain such as diabetic neuropathy and shingles.

Evidently capsaicin doesn’t hurt birds, which eat chile tepins as if they were berries. My dad used to say he liked hunting wild turkey in South Texas because they ate chile tepins, which gave their meat a spicy, distinct flavor.

Years ago, an uncle of mine used to pick chile tepins, put them in vinegar in small jars and send them to me from Texas, where such jars of peppers are regional condiments typically seen in homes and restaurants.

He also sent dried chile tepins and seeds for planting here in Yuma. I planted some to no avail. But I also shared the seeds with my “brother” Peewee, who successfully raised them in the filtered shade of a nurse tree in amended soil with plenty of irrigation water after starting the seeds indoors.

Chile tepins are also called chile petins (pee-TEENS) or chile pequins (pee-KEENS). I’ve never found a source who could explain why the names are used interchangeably or what the difference is, if any. But packaged chiles from the grocery store may provide a clue.

The tiny round chiles are labeled as chile tepins whereas the slightly larger oval-shaped chiles are labeled as chile pequins. However, both the round and oval-shaped chiles grew on Peewee’s chile tepin bushes, so the mystery remains unsolved.

No matter what it’s called, or what shape it is, the chile I know as chile tepin makes the best-tasting salsa I’ve ever eaten. It’s so good that my son, Tom, who’s now 26, submitted it as his favorite recipe for the class cookbook when he was in the third grade.

The fact that it’s juxtaposed against other kids’ recipes such as Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Microwave Chocolate Fudge and Cherry Vanilla Freeze further attest to its deliciousness.

The salsa is good on just about anything, especially chorizo and eggs with refried beans and fried potatoes. But freshly made rolled tacos are to die for when soaked in the salsa momentarily before being devoured.

I’ll bet that my friend Bajo el Sol Editor John Vaughn will prepare the recipe and write a “First Take” commentary on how good it is. That is, if he can take the heat better than a 4-year-old girl did.

Tom’s Chile Tepin Salsa
1 6-ounce can of tomato sauce
1/4 cup of onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar
Dried chile tepins (amount determined by taste - a little goes a long way)
1 teaspoon of dried Mexican oregano
Salt to taste
  Mix all ingredients except chile tepins in a small bowl and set aside. Using plastic food-handling gloves to prevent burning of the fingers, crush chile tepins. (A paper napkin or plastic bag can be used instead of gloves, just as long as the chiles don’t come into contact with skin.)
  Add very little crushed chile to the other ingredients, mix well and taste. Add more chile if desired and taste again repeatedly until the desired flavor and intensity are achieved. While the salsa can be served immediately, the flavor improves as it sits in the fridge.
  CAUTION: Keep all chiles out of reach of children. They can cause severe pain to the eyes, mucous membranes and fingers.