How many Scoville units do you want for dinner? It’s difficult to know how many fresh chillies to add to your cooking, because they are all so different. Even chillies of the same species can vary in strength depending on their seed genes, climate and soil. The Scoville scale, named after Wilbur Scoville who developed the Scoville Organoleptic test in 1912, rates the amount of heat-generating capsaicin in each chilli, from the mildest red pepper (0) to the hottest habanero (300,000). It places the commonly available bright green or red Serrano chilli, with its clean biting heat, down the milder end of the scale at 10,000 to 23,000.
If you are not sure how hot your chillies are, then slice or chop them into larger pieces rather than smaller, so that they flavour the dish but can also be spotted and avoided. If you want to deseed and slice a chilli into rings, first cut off its top and tail, then push a chopstick through the middle, pushing out the seeds. And don’t forget to wash the chopstick before eating with it, as it will by now have a few thousand Scoville units of its own.
Ingredients
Serves 4
Prep 20min
Cook 30min
4 fish cutlets or steaks, eg halibut
Flour for coating
Sea salt and pepper
5cm knob fresh ginger, peeled
1 mild red chilli
1 sweet green pepper
2 thick slices cooked ham
2tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
150ml water or stock
1tsp sugar 1 to 2tbsp Thai fish sauce
1tsp cornflour
Fresh coriander leaves
METHOD
To make the sauce: cut the ginger, chilli, sweet pepper and ham into very thin matchsticks. Heat half the oil in a wok or frying pan and cook the ginger, garlic, chilli, sweet pepper and ham, stirring, for 2 min. Add the water, sugar and fish sauce, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 min until the liquid is reduced by half. Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp cold water, and add, stirring until lightly thickened.
Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan. Lightly coat the fish in flour, salt and pepper, and fry on both sides until golden. Serve the fish on a bed of rice, ladle the sauce on top and scatter with coriander.