Piment rocoto

Minced with olive and egg, packed back into the hollowed pepper and baked.

Salt-bitter fruit against a hot juicy one. Arequipa puts both in the same stuffing.

Sliced underneath so the starch drinks whatever runs out of the pepper in the oven.

Set custard carries the heat all the way through without softening any of it.

The one chilli that stays crunchy in the acid instead of going limp in ten minutes.

Both raw, both loud, both sliced thin. The Andean salsa in two ingredients.

Green heat rather than yellow: sharper on white fish, and it lands a beat later.

Fat is the only brake on this burn, and the pepper tastes better slowed down.

Melted over the top it works as a lid and a fire blanket in the same move.

Ground nut thickens the sauce and takes the top off the heat without sweetening it.

Blend both raw: the fruit acid lands first and the pepper waits until you swallow.

Bitter roast under green heat — the Andes and Mesoamerica arguing in one spoon.

Sugar makes a burn readable. Spoon it over raw rings and eat them like fruit.

Two watery green things, one of them on fire. A salad, and a warning.