Spicy soy, seed bitterness and placental capsaicin
If you read this Is seeding peppers a must when making hot sauce it is made pretty clear that chili seeds contain little or no capsaicin but are bitter.
I have personally experienced (and then made) a very hot condiment made by cracking chili seeds with a spoon and mixing them into soy sauce then leaving it to stand. It was pretty potent but the seeds could well have traces of the placenta attached to them.
Is the spiciness entirely attributable to capsaicin from placental contamination? Or is there some other mechanism at play?
Best Answer
It's not that they contain no capsaicin - they do contain some - about 5 mg/g dry weight, compared to 7 mg/g for the main pericarp (the fleshy part that you eat), but most of it is in the placenta/veins (64 mg/g).
The spiciness is attributable to the presence of capsaicin and other polyphenolics in the seeds, and probably some placental contamination too. I have no reference for this, but I doubt that many industrial methods of extracting the seeds will remove all of the placenta from the seed or work so carefully that some of the juice from the placenta isn't coated onto the seeds in some manner.
It is also likely that you are adding a relatively high amount of seeds to a small volume and infusing from there. In addition you are breaking the seeds up a little so you will be able to extract more of the heat than you might with intact seeds.
Normally when I make the chili/soy sauce, I add some sesame oil to help extract the capsaicin and act as a vehicle to enhance the flavour/heat - perfect with some Jiaozi/potstickers.
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Are chilli seeds bitter?
No, pepper seeds are not toxic but you may still want to remove them before eating. Pepper seeds are slightly bitter, but not so bitter that they will ruin a dish in most cases; however, you may want to remove them if you are using a large number of peppers.Should you remove seeds from peppers for hot sauce?
The biggest reason you may want to remove your pepper seeds before cooking with or eating them is TEXTURE. When you are making a pepper sauce, hot sauce, or anything that blends into a thin or creamy texture, you'll notice the seeds will float throughout your liquid.Should you remove habanero seeds?
For most peppers, you can remove the seeds and pith and it's effectively \u201cde-clawed.\u201d For habaneros, they still have a lot of heat even after you remove the pith. So much so that you can't fully enjoy their flavor.Are chilli seeds more spicy?
Recipes often instruct you to remove the seeds from a spicy pepper if you want less heat, which seems to imply that the seeds are the source of the fire. But while removing the seeds might help a little, they're not the true producer of heat!Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Pixabay, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Karolina Grabowska, Karolina Grabowska