It is Hatch pepper season.
My local grocery store was having a sale so I bought a bunch.
Had a few raw that I chopped and had on a burger for some extra taste and had the in a few other dishes.
Nice amount of heat, nothing to much bu enough to know its there, great flavor, and it tastes better than a jalapeno, IMHO.
I had a lot leftover so I decided to roast them.
I grilled them on a friend's propane grill.
Once all roasty, I had them sweat in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 15 minutes.
Then I proceeded to skin them and the burned parts came off quite easily, leaving behind wonderful and tasty roasted peppers.
These then got placed in quart ziploc bags and put away for later use.
I did, however, forget one rather important step.
Yep, I wasn't wearing gloves. There were no food gloves available.
So, after peeling the peppers and putting them away, I washed my hands repeatedly with dish soap, dried them and washed them again with the soap. Did that cycle 5 times.
This should have been sufficient.
Should have being the operative words, but it was not.
A few hours later, I went to take out my contacts, again washing my hands well before doing so.
Nope, that didn't help either, the peppers got their revenge.
Fingers removed contact lenses and then instantly:
Ouch. Frack, Ouch.
I think this is probably what being pepper sprayed feels like.
Ouch, more Ouch, and F me even more Ouch. My eyes, they were a burning, they were tearing, they were burning some more. The burning feeling continued.
And these are Hatch peppers, not even really hot peppers!
Anyhoo, the burning sensation eventually went away. A useful lesson was learned.
I'm now going to make sure I have some plastic food handling gloves available and on my hands whenever handling even mild peppers.
So I'd count that as a success with eight roasted peppers and a practice exposure to pepper spray all in one go.
I would however suggest to most people to forgo the exposure part and just process the peppers while wearing gloves for a far more sedate and less painful process.
6 comments:
Been there, done that and I feel your pain. But, some lessons are learned and NEVER forgotten.
juvat
Yes the lesson is never forgotten. 29 years ago I had my first and only experience with processing habanero peppers. My girlfriend told me to wash my face and hands with vinegar then a shower, followed by more vinegar. I have some jalapenos from the garden to process this week. I will be buying gloves.
Brake Clean, and if you use a mix of Dawn (not cheaper versions) dish soap, and Windex after, that usually clans your skin.
Hand soap doesn't get it with pepper juice. (as you learned)
Use a nail brush or equivalent to scrub your skin and nails though.
B: I'll have to try that if it occurs again. I did use Dawn soap --Dawn platinum plus powerwash -- no less but to no good effect, but I'll be sure to be using nitrile gloves whenever I do this again.
I processed some jalapenos to put into bacon wrap for the birdies (my favorite way to prep them). Really fresh jalapenos. I was drinking a beer while I worked, and washed hands and hit the kitchen bathroom to eliminate the rented beer....yeeouch that was warm on my privates... God almighty... The worst thing is, I had boxes of gloves in my office just down a hallway....
I guess it was some kind of cosmic payback for murderin' a bunch of cute little birds.
I should have mentioned dove..
Post a Comment