You love your spicy hot pizza peppers. But are you brave enough for a less spicy pepper with a flavor punch?

Are you a fan of hot, hot peppers? As a home pizzamaker, you may not be. Or maybe you love hot peppers. But often, you're serving folks who are less adventurous. (I will refrain from calling them weenies. Sometimes, they lack proper conditioning. Or they're legitimately challenged by things such as Irish heritage. Or they're infants. Even the children of India aren't eating full-on, tongue-ripping vindaloo until age 6.) 

For capsicum-reluctant diners, cooking fired-up dishes—including certain arrabiata or “angry” pizzas—is challenging. One guy I know breaks out into a crazy sweat just eating a taco salad at the diner--a dish so pedestrian and benign, you have to wonder if it contains any capsaicin at all. But for some of these people so challenged (and for us!) I've started using an excellent midpoint pepper product with good flavor, enough heat to make itself known, and which is tolerable and enjoyable even for some of our pepper-fearful friends. Hailing from Turkey, it's common in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. I feel a little like it's the lost note on the hot pepper musical scale. It's called the Aleppo pepper and it is so very tasty.

The hot pepper enjoyment factor is understandable. One of the reasons we love pizza is it’s a dopamine rush on a plate. Adding hot chili increases the dopamine factor and adds an endorphin rush. 

Endorphins are the body's natural painkillers. They can inspire a sense of euphoria. The heat in your mouth tricks your brain into thinking you’re in pain. In response, your brain releases endorphins and you feel good. 

Additionally, dopamine is associated with reward and pleasure. The hot chilis up the dopamine factor alongside the tomato, cheese and carbs associated with a traditional slice of pizza. Pizza is almost a controlled substance. We could almost call eating a spiced-up pizza slice a form of nutritional self-medication. 

The common "pizza pepper" that comes in the shaker at the local slice joint is a cayenne pepper or something similar. The heat level in those pepper flakes is rated about 20,000 to 30,000 Scoville units.
 
[SIDEBAR: Don’t know the Scoville scale? It's a measurement system for spiciness of chili peppers. Bell peppers rate zero. A jalapeño can rate from 2,500 to 8,000. Tabasco and cayenne peppers rate 30,000 to 50,000. Habañero rates 100,000. Carolina Reaper rates about 1.4 million.]

For some, the heat of those red pepper pizza flakes is intolerable. For others, it's not enough. (Personally, I can go much hotter, and will do so with Thai or Indian food. I love it.)

But for me, the standard pizzeria pepper flake is typically just a fiery kick. It doesn't have a lot of flavor behind it. That's where the Aleppo pepper steps in with a surprising and pleasant depth of character.

The Aleppo pepper rates only about 10,000 on the Scoville scale. And while that's not a wallop by any stretch, it brings a surprising amount of flavor for such a simple little pepper product.

If you make homemade chili with dried peppers, you may know the Ancho chili. The Aleppo pepper has a similar flavor profile. It's sweet and earthy with a roundness that just doesn't happen in a cayenne pepper. If you're a flavor-wheel kind of person, think notes of cherry, plum, raisin, earthiness and coffee. If you're not a flavor wheeler, don't be put off by those notes. They're subtle. In the final analysis, it just tastes like a yummy hot pepper.

Also, the heat of the Aleppo builds slowly. It doesn't attack like red pepper flakes do. And honestly, the Aleppo pepper might even be a sneaky way to woo a reluctant chili eater over to the hot, dark side.

You can pair the Aleppo pepper with other, hotter peppers. Depending on what I’m cooking, I sometimes pair the Aleppo with cayenne pepper (and others) to build a fuller, more rounded hot chili profile in whatever I'm cooking. I'm also a fan of smoked Spanish paprika. You get the kind of depth of flavor that makes your friends ask, "Dude, what is IN there, man?!" 

If you want to try Aleppo chiles, they're pretty reasonably priced on Amazon. (For now. And yes, there are Amazon affiliate links scattered about in here.)

I also admit that the reason this even came up is because very soon, we're going to be talking about a gumbo pizza we just made. I tried the Aleppo chilies with the gumbo pizza. They were good. But the consensus was the that the pizza also needed some acid. So we're going to bring another spicy partner to the party. Looking forward to that and I hope you join us. (If you want to make sure you see that little bit of homemade pizza peculiarity, you can subscribe to this missive as an email by clicking here. It will end up right in your in box.)
 
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Are you still waiting to begin your homemade pizza journey? My weird little book is one way to do it. My book is less about recipes and dedicated ovens and more about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. ​​