Taming the Heat

Do you love kitchen gadgets? I certainly do! Get me near a Sur La Table or Williams-Sonoma store, and I can do some seriously damage to my bank account. I don't know how I ever lived without my Microplane grater or my apple corer. Anything that will make meal prep quicker and easier is something I must have. At the top of my wish list right now are a tofu press and an industrial French fry cutter. You hear that, Santa?

I also love spicy foods: I can never get enough Thai, Indian, or Mexican food. But I don't love super hot foods. I know there are lots of people who really like it hot—the hotter the better. But I don't enjoy setting my taste buds on fire. I always deseed and devein hot peppers like jalapeños, habañeros, and Thai chile peppers before cooking them. Carefully removing and discarding the seeds as well as the white cross walls and veins, where the capsaicin is produced, is how you can tame the heat.

How often have I cut myself cleaning out the inside of a jalapeño, and how many times have I thought how tedious it is to do this job? (Quite often, actually. A knife in my hands is a disaster waiting to happen.) So what a stroke of serendipity that I should run into Joe Norris, the owner and inventor of the PepperShark, at the Eugene Celebration this past weekend!


This snappy little stainless-steel precision tool is designed to clean, deseed, and devein peppers.  It fits neatly in the palm of my hand, and with its smooth finish and razor-sharp loop fashioned at the tip, I was ready to try it out on this little green lovely:


I ran the tip around the inside of the pepper, and removed the inner flesh and most of the seeds in one swift stroke.


As you can see, the walls still remain. But this is where the PepperShark really earns its name.


Instead of having to use a knife to scrape or cut the white walls away, I simply ran the tip of the PepperShark over the remaining veins and in seconds was left with a perfectly clean jalapeño! What a neat little timesaver!


Next, I wanted to try the PepperShark on a bell pepper. I cut off the top, and what I'd usually do at this point is cut off the bottom, pull out the center part, cut the bell into segments around the veins, and then either cut or grate the veins to remove them.


But in this case, all I had to do was pull out the core, and slide the PepperShark over the veins to be left with a perfectly clean bell.


And now that I have these beautiful peppers ready to roll, I think I'll prepare some Black Bean, Corn, and Rice Burritos for dinner tonight. Oh wait, the recipe doesn't call for red bell. That's okay, I'm going to chop this one up and throw it in anyway. It will be all the more delicious!

Here's an exclusive offer just for my readers! Order your very own PepperShark today (did I mention that they're only ten bucks?), and Joe will throw in a free PepperShark as a bonus! That's buy one, get one free, (one for you and one for a friend!) if you leave a comment on this post, and then head on over to the PepperShark website and place your order today!  You'll want to place your order, then go to the contact page and mention my name or "Hungry Vegan" blog to get your free PepperShark. What a deal!

After you've received your nifty new PepperShark and have had a chance to play with it, I would love to hear how much you love it, and I know that Joe would, too!