It is no joke to be burned by a tiny, red fruit – the chilli padi.
It happened to me on one of those days when all the hard work poured into cooking turned out disastrous. Yeah. I was into Thai food and the desire to prepare Thai fish cakes was on an all time high. The recipe called for the chilli to be seeded and sliced. So I “act hero” by using my precious bare fingers to detach the chilli seeds and placenta (those white strips where seeds are attached too) before slicing. I even rubbed my cheeks with my hands soon after. You guessed correctly – it did not take long for the fiery chemical of the chilli to send its searing heat throughout my fingers and cheeks!
Thank God for the Internet! Immediately, I went on a Google search for some remedies for my chilli burns. After reading up on the properties of the culprit chemical (capsaicin) and a forum on how to relieve chilli (they call it ‘pepper’) burns, I tried applying aloe vera gel, rubbing on cut surfaces of onions and rubbing with rice vinegar. Wow, I must say that the last two methods really worked wonders! My agony was almost gone with the vinegar while the onions significantly reduced the sting. Since onions and vinegar are common kitchen items, these are very handy in treating chilli burns indeed. I read that cooking oil can also remove the pain. I didn’t try that as I disliked getting my hands oily.
Capsaicin is alkaline in nature. I think it might be the acids found in onion and vinegar (ethanoic acid) that neutralised the effect of capsaicin. Cooking oil is used by others as capsaicin is oil-soluble.
Next time, I should wear gloves before touching chilli again.
I once endeavored to make a basic chicken & rice dish, except I wanted to make it so hot just smelling the stuff would incinerate one’s nasal passages. So, without gloves, I handled and sliced up six bright orange habanero chilis to use in the dish. Later, without thinking about it, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself. Bad idea.
Those were not happy times! For about 2 hours I was in some pretty exquisite pain, but I had only myself to blame. Oh, and the dish itself only turned out so-so. In fact, I’ve not touched a habenero since — looking at them even hurts.
Oh my! You poor thing. And I thought I had it bad. Guess that the spice of life! Hee hee. :P
You know bud, you really made Ling laugh out loud with that one.:)
I made my friends and family laugh out loud at the time too. I tried to hide my discomfort for a while, but in the end I exposed my stupidity!