I can see a few gloomy faces in India. And I don’t mean all those involved in the scams and tapes that are rocking the nation. I am referring to chilli lovers.

We didn’t have the fastest runner in the world, the most awarded physicist or the world’s top grosser in music. But we did have Bhut Jalokia. When people talked about the hottest of habanero chillies, we sneered. After all, our chilli — also known as the Raja mirchi — was the hottest chilli in the world.

And then the British went and spoilt it all for us. Earlier this year, they announced that they had developed a chilli — called Infinity — which was even hotter than the Bhut Jalokia.

I was getting more and more depressed about this when Sujan Mukherjee, the executive chef of Taj Bengal, called me up. He had the remedy for the blues — a set of dishes that celebrated the chilli. I thought that was an excellent idea — not just because the dishes he suggested were mouth-watering, but because the recipes dealt with all kinds of chillies. Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling all that bad about the Infinity any more.

Thai red chilli tempura

Indeed, there are almost as many chillies in the world as there are Scoville units, which are the measures that grade the hotness of a chilli. (Incidentally, the Infinity chilli measures 1,067,286 on the Scoville Scale, while the Bhut Jalokia stands at 1,041,427.) With so many kinds of chillies, the chef clearly had a field day conjuring up dishes with varying flavours — from mild to pungent to get-the-fire-extinguisher.

Bell peppers are among the mildest chillies that you can get. But while they have an almost sweet taste, they also carry a distinct chilli flavour. The chef uses these very effectively for an entrée called American bell peppers stuffed with cous cous and Asian basil pesto.

If the peppers are mild, the small chillies that we get in wild abundance in India are among the hottest around. They bestow incredible flavours to our curries and add vigour to the blandest of sauces. Some of our cuisines, in fact, revel in the use of hot chillies. A great many Andhra dishes, for instance, are fiery hot. Likewise, you have dishes from the east that are so hot that you need to be strongly adventurous to enjoy them. Chef Mukherjee raises a toast to the brave with the Assamese Bhut Jalokia teen mirchi aloo. It sounds great to me, but try it out only if you think you are up to it.

American bell peppers stuffed with cous cous and Asian basil pesto

What’s interesting about the plant is that it’s found across the world today, and used in different ways in different regions. For a hot Oriental dish, the chef prepares Thai red chilli tempuras with mustard yoghurt. On the other end of the spectrum is his Swiss delight. He prepares a fondue and a potato roesti with the mild paprika which is almost sweet to taste.

Chillies, surprisingly, also make great desserts. I loved a chocolate that we used to get from a chocolatier in south Delhi. He used to dip a chilli in vodka for three days, and then put it in hot chocolate. The result was an excellent bit of chocolate — sweet and mildly hot.

Chef Mukherjee has another sweet in mind — and that’s the pickled Spanish piri piri Philadelphia cheese cake with kaffir lime (see recipe). You get piri piri chillies in some of the more upmarket vegetable shops these days. Also called the bird’s eye or the African devil, this is quite a hot chilli, but gets neutralised in this dish with lime juice, which gives the dessert its pickled taste.

The chilli is so much in our diet these days that’s it difficult to re- member that it did not come into India before the 16th century. Brought in by the Portuguese, it’s now a veritable part of our lives.

I, for one, love my chillies — chopped in an omelette, as a paste in my gravy, or as flakes in my pasta. Chef Mukherjee’s paean to the chilli has prompted me to take out a bottle that I had carefully stored in my larder for future use. It’s a sauce that my musician friend Rahul got me from the United States some weeks ago. It’s called No Wimps Allowed. This is where I take a modest bow.

Pickled Spanish piri piri Philadelphia cheese cake with kaffir lime

Ingredients

• 150ml double cream • 20g butter • 150g caster sugar • 1 vanilla pod • 3 beaten eggs • juice of 1 lemon • 10 finely chopped piri piri chillies • juice of 1 kaffir lime

Method:

In a bowl mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Pour the mixture into a baking mould. Put the baking mould in a deep tray and fill the tray with water. Place the tray (with the bowl) in a pre-heated oven at about 180°C. Bake for about 40 minutes. Let it cool (to room temperature). Serve it as it is, or chilled.