# Help - dish too hot - how to tone down?



## Trousch (Jan 13, 2008)

I am looking for a way to take the heat out of a dish I made because I put in to many green chilies....  Help


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## texasgirl (Jan 13, 2008)

What is the dish, that might help with what to add to it.


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## Andy M. (Jan 13, 2008)

Hi, Trousch.  Welcome to DC.

The only way to reduce the heat in your dish is to make another batch without chiles and combine the two.

Adding other ingredients to mask the heat, even if they worked, would change the flavor of the dish.


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## Trousch (Jan 13, 2008)

This dish was just everyday goulash.


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## Jeff G. (Jan 13, 2008)

goulash...... add sour cream.


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## sage™ (Jan 14, 2008)

drink a nice big glass of milk with it.   sour cream will tone it down


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## Bilby (Jan 14, 2008)

Welcome to DC!  Serve it with lettuce as it cools the mouth down better than milk.  Add rice to the dish as well as a bit of sour cream and it will help but Andy M is right that the only way to really dilute the heat without changing the flavour is to dilute the dish.

I find that sometimes if I eat a "hot" dish after it has become cold, the heat is much more tolerable and it becomes a flavour in the dish more than a heat.


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## sage™ (Jan 14, 2008)

If something is too hot for me ( very few things are) I just keep eating it and my mouth gets use to it..lol


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## Bilby (Jan 14, 2008)

Really!!!?? I don't have a great tolerance to heat, a little is okay like I can take a green or a red Thai curry but I have a tissue plastered to my nose and I am looking hot and bothered! Really hot and I am ready to curl up and die!!! LOL


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## archiduc (Jan 14, 2008)

Hi Trousch, 
If it`s not too late, here`s what I would do.

Strain the sauce to separate the meat and sauce. Put half the sauce into a pan. Add PASSATA to make up to the original quanitity. Warm, taste and adjust either with more passata of more of the original sauce. Return the meat to the pan. Now this is just a general guide - only you know just how hot the sauce is and how much you want/need to tone it down. If you`ve got the time and the patience, you may want to "fish out" some of the chillies as you add the meat back into the pan. 

Other ideas, remove some of the sauce, add stock and thicken to the original consistency with some cornflour mixed with cold water. Keep any sauce that you remove and use it to make patatas bravas. Potatoes are well known for their capacity to take the heat out of dishes - this is why they are one of the traditional accompaniments to Goulash. This brings me to another idea - thin out the sauce with some stock and then thicken with potato flour - from memory this should be treated in the same way as cornflour, i.e., mix with some cold water, add some hot sauce, stir and return to the pan.

Hope this helps, if not for this time then next time - no, there`s not going to be a next time is there!!!!!

Regards,
Archiduc


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## Andy M. (Jan 14, 2008)

archiduc said:


> Hi Trousch,
> If it`s not too late, here`s what I would do.
> 
> Strain the sauce to separate the meat and sauce. Put half the sauce into a pan. Add PASSATA to make up to the original quanitity. Warm, taste and adjust either with more passata of more of the original sauce. Return the meat to the pan. Now this is just a general guide - only you know just how hot the sauce is and how much you want/need to tone it down. If you`ve got the time and the patience, you may want to "fish out" some of the chillies as you add the meat back into the pan.
> ...


 

Your first method would remove half the seasonings on the original liquid and add much more tomato than the dish calls for, changing the flavor quite a bit.  The other options you quote would also significantly reduce the flavor of the dish, replacing it with other flavors.

While they would indeed cut the heat, you would no longer have goulash.


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## Trousch (Jan 14, 2008)

*Thanks the Heat is off*

Thanks everyone for your input, the next day the dish didn't have as much heat and the sour cream helped alot.  I'm glad I found this web site.


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## archiduc (Jan 14, 2008)

Dear Andy M.,
Further to your message - we`ll just have to agree to disagree.
could depend upon having a list of all the original ingredients! In reality, both solutions would work.
Archiduc


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## Claire (Jan 18, 2008)

Cucumbers in a yogut dressing (yogurt, mint, a touch of honey if you have a sweet tooth) are a great counterpart to food that is too hot.  Other than that, double the recipe, sans spices.


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