Quote:
Originally Posted by habitat_gardener
I have a question about paprika. Can't you make it from any dried, ground peppers? Isn't this analogous to paste tomatoes, that there are varieties bred for cooking into sauce, but in fact, any good tomato can make good sauce?
I had more sweet peppers than we could eat this year (and by the time I noticed they were wrinkling up, so couldn't really give them away). I ended up dehydrating them and then grinding them -- mostly Frank's and some Slonovo Uvo, Sunbright, and Cal Wonder. It smells delicious!
I also dried and ground my poblanos, so now I have ancho powder.
I have a few other hot peppers that need to be preserved, and I will probably dry and grind each one separately.
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Yes, you can dry and grind up any pepper for good pepper powder; I've done it for years. But when I finally had enough of the Boldog Hungarians to grind by themselves, I was astounded by the intensity of the red color as well as the flavor. And both the previously mentioned Alma and Feherozone peppers have quite thick walls, giving a higher yield of powder. These days, though, I make a fermented sweet pepper sauce from them and other peppers instead of drying them.