The hottest peppers that exist aren’t of course always the nicest peppers. Sometimes the intensity of a pepper is valued over its ability to be a truly great ingredient which can spice up your dish.
However, if you can find a pepper that both combines an intense heat with a delightful taste then you will have found a pepper that you can use in cooking time and time again.
Such a pepper is the Naga Morich pepper.
If you need to know how to use the Naga Morich pepper to spice up an otherwise drab meal then you are in luck because this piece will set out exactly what the Naga Morich pepper is, how to use it and why it is a great pepper to have in your cooking.
What Is A Naga Morich Pepper?
First of all, let’s start out by explaining what exactly a Naga Morich pepper is and where it came from. The Naga Morich Pepper was first found in Northeast India and Bangladesh.
A member of the Capsicum chinense family, the Naga Morich is unique in that it is extremely hot, in fact it is one of the hottest naturally occurring chili peppers.
The Naga Morich is so hot that it scores between 1 and 1.5 million on the Scoville Heat Unit scale, a method of ranking the hotness of peppers.
This means that to use the Naga Morich properly you only need a small amount of it – one slice or even less can be enough for it to be used properly.
The Naga Morich is also well known because of its close similarity to its relative, the Ghost Pepper. The Ghost Pepper is also known for its intensity in regard to both flavor and heat – however the Naga Morich beats it on both scores.
In fact there are only a few cross bred peppers that beat the Naga Morich for how hot it is – one includes the Dorset Naga, a subspecies of the Naga Morich developed in Dorset, England with the intention of making an even hotter version of the Naga Morich.
The Naga Morich is identified by its relatively small size and pimply texture.
The fruit is soft to the touch and when grown almost has a flower-like quality to it. However, unlike your average daffodil the Naga Morich will give a much more forceful punch and will certainly add more to whatever dish you are cooking.
Now that we’ve set out exactly what a Naga Morich pepper is, let’s explain how best to utilise this power pepper in your cooking.
How To Use A Naga Morich Pepper In Your Cooking
Now that we’ve outlined exactly what a Naga Morich pepper is, let’s move on to explaining how it can and should be used in your cooking.
Whilst it is a very hot pepper, this isn’t to say that the Naga Morich lacks taste at all.
Far from it, it is well known to have a delicate fruity taste which can make you think that you are tasting a slice of apricot rather than one of the hottest naturally occurring peppers in the world.
What is also apparent when you taste a Naga Morrich pepper is that the heat only slowly builds up over time – you don’t get an instant heat shock from tasting the pepper.
This means that, unlike other spicy or hot peppers, you aren’t immediately overwhelmed by heat but rather have time for the intensity of flavor to develop in your mouth.
Therefore, the best way to use the Naga Morich is sparingly and in a way that will add to your dish rather than distract from it. The pepper can be easily cut and liquified and turned into an intense but fresh sauce to use with different types of meals. Equally, it can be used to create a stunning soup.
When turning the Naga Morich into a soup, you must remember that it should serve as the central flavor of the meal because otherwise you will simply be wasting other ingredients.
The Naga Morich pepper’s intense heat and flavor mean that attempting to mix it with too many other, less strong-tasting ingredients will only serve to waste them as the sheer power of the pepper will overpower them and render them invisible in your soup.
You must therefore make the Naga Morrich the center of your soup. Naga Morrich soup can be very hot if you use too much of the core ingredient so make sure to only use a small piece of the pepper.
Too much and it will become inedible. You don’t need to worry about adding too little because even a little bit of the pepper is instantly recognizable.
Why It Is Worth Trying The Naga Morich Pepper
Although its reputation as an extremely hot pepper may put you off, you shouldn’t stop yourself from using the Naga Morich pepper in your cooking. The reason is because it tastes too good not to use in a dish.
It has a truly intense, fruity flavor that will certainly make you feel like you are eating a delicious and yet earthy piece of fruit.
When it is added in the right proportion to another dish it can create an absolutely sensational taste that will make you feel certain that you are in food heaven.
So don’t risk denying yourself using this excellent pepper simply because you are worried about how hot it is. It is a truly phenomenal pepper whose exciting taste should not be forgotten simply because of its heat factor.
