Chopped Hot Peppers

Chopped hot pepper is not just heat for its own sake. Get a spoonful too close to a cut on your hand and you'll feel it long before you taste anything — that's how you know it means business. A splash of yoghurt over a hot dish cools your mouth faster than water ever will, so keep yoghurt near the stove, not the tap, when you've overdone it.

Choose it by smell first. Good chopped pepper smells sharp and a little green, almost vegetal, before it smells hot. If all you get is dust and no aroma, taste a little before you commit the jar to the pot. Colour should be bright, not brown at the edges — brown looks tired, and tired pepper is worth a taste test too.

Some people say the seeds are where the heat lives. No. Chew a bare seed next to a scrap of white pith and the pith bites harder every time. This misconception leads cooks to scrape out the seeds carefully, leave the pith behind by mistake, and then wonder why the dish still bites harder than they meant it to.