Green chilli

Any chilli picked before it ripens — sharper, grassier and usually hotter-seeming than the same pepper left to redden, and the everyday fresh chilli of India, Thailand, Mexico and most of the tropics.

Where it comes from

Green is not a variety but a stage. Every chilli starts green and turns red, orange, yellow or brown as it ripens and its sugars develop; picked green it carries less sweetness to soften the heat and a fresh, vegetal flavour that disappears with ripening. In much of the world the green fruit is simply what a chilli is — in Indian, Pakistani, Thai and Mexican markets the fresh green chilli is the default and the red one the exception.

Which green chilli a kitchen means depends on where it is. In India it is usually a slim, hot finger chilli; in Thailand a bird’s eye or a larger prik chee fa; in Mexico a serrano or jalapeño; in the Balkans and Turkey a long, mild sivri. A recipe that says ‘green chilli’ without more usually wants the local one, and the heat can differ tenfold between them.

Varieties

• Indian finger chilli — Slim, four to eight centimetres, sharply hot. The chilli in a dal tadka or chopped raw over chaat.
• Serrano — Mexico’s everyday fresh chilli — smaller and noticeably hotter than a jalapeño, thin-walled, with a clean bright heat. The green of a salsa verde.
• Jalapeño — Thick-walled and moderate; the mildest of the common green chillies and the one for stuffing, pickling and slicing raw.
• Prik chee fa — The long Thai ‘sky-pointing’ chilli. Medium heat, used green or red, often sliced into curries and salads for colour and mild fire.
• Anaheim and Hatch — The long, mild green chillies of the American Southwest, roasted whole and peeled for chile verde and rellenos.
• Sivri — Turkey’s long, thin green chilli, mild to medium. Grilled whole beside kebabs and chopped into salads.

In the kitchen

Most of the heat is in the membrane that holds the seeds; slit the chilli and scrape it out for flavour without the full fire, or leave the chilli whole and cook it in the dish for a gentle infusion, lifting it out at the end.

Green chillies fried briefly in oil at the start of a dish — the Indian tadka — release their aroma into the fat; chopped raw and added at the end they stay sharp and bright. The two uses taste quite different and many dishes do both.

Choosing and keeping

Fresh green chillies should be firm, glossy and unwrinkled with a fresh stem. They keep a week or two in the fridge; longer, they soften and start to ripen red, which is not a fault but is a different flavour.

They freeze well whole and can be chopped from frozen. Pickled in brine or vinegar they keep for months and are a dish in their own right across India, Mexico and the Middle East.

Green chilli is tagged on 284 dishes from 82 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.