BEST mild chili for authentic chili

[mensplace]

Recently I made what I consider to be an authentic chili from a whole bag of dried chili peppers found in a Mexican food store. I loved it, but it was a tad too hot for the wife. Might there be an intensely flavored, but mild and sweet chili pepper variety I should be looking for? Not sure how they are dried, but might the seeds be viable for growing? I really enjoy a deep chili flavor that comes from boiling the dried chili and then adding the garlic, cumin, onions, salt, pepper, and ground beef. Not much into many "American" recipes that go wild with every other possible flavoring...or beans and are often far too thick or overwhelmed with ketchup or tomato paste.

[DiggingDogFarm]

Anchos


~DiggingDog

[barefootgardener]

If you are looking for sweet and mild (mildly spicy), Shi♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫o Chili Pepper (Japanese)..is one. It is hotter than a Bell Pepper, but not as hot as Chili's..Not quite sure just how mild your wife want's..But Ancho's are good too like DDF say's..

Ok..I guess I cant spell the exact spelling of the Shi♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫o Chili Pepper without being censored..if interested in the name PM me...Ginny

[Blueaussi]

You don't happen to know the name of the one you used, do you? It might help in matching up a milder form that your wife would enjoy with the taste you liked.

[brokenbar]

There is also a new "Fajita Bell" hybrid that blends the size, heat and flavor of bells, sweets and hots. I ate some at a friends and it was excellent!

[TomNJ]

Anchos are the right choice. If you grow them, the variety is called Poblano (Ancho refers to dried Poblanos).

If you find your chili peppers too hot, consider cutting them with mild Paprika powder. Keeps a nice chili flavor while reducing the heat. Also consider using whole cumin seeds rather than ground cumin - gives a cleaner cumin taste as you get mini-bursts of cumin flavor as you bite the seeds.

TomNJ

[TZ-OH6]

I use a mix of Ancho, Guajillo and Pasilla when I can get them all. Its a pretty standard dried pepper combo for Mexican cooking. About three each for chili with 3 lbs of ground meat. There is a hint of warmth, but it has never come out too hot for my mother who does not like heat. Stripping out the inner membranes will help bring down the heat.

I boil them for a few minutes until soft and then put in the blender. This way it really thickens up the chili moreso than adding them as powder. Its especially thick the next day.

Sometimes the packs of dried peppers will have a heat scale on them.

My luck with seeds from different dried packs is about 50/50. I got seeds to germinate out of a 6 year old package of dried Anaheims.

[SherylF]

Poblanos or Big Jim. My favorite pepper is the Anaheim (very popular here in Colorado - I don't consider them hot, but I think I'm pretty acclimated to them by now). Roast the peppers either on a bbq or in the oven (until they are slightly blackened and the skin peels off easily) and remove the seeds. You can then cut them up for chili or stuff them with cheese and make a chili relleno (yummmm!) Peppers are a big thing here, and in the late summer, there are places all over town that sell large bags of freshly roasted chilis.

[RonnyWil]

I like the College 64.

http://www.chileplants.com/search.as...earchButton=Go

[VORTREKER]

If you liked the flavor of what you got at the Mexican store (probably Poblano) and your wife really thought it it to be a "tad" too hot you can save all of the flavor and remove almost all of the heat by cutting it in half removing the seeds and scraping away the yellowish viens.
A lot of work but really good food is work.
Bon Apatit