Pat from Ocala put too much pepper in her beef bourguignon. Adding just a bit of sugar to the rich wine sauce should do the trick…. sugar tends to tone down heat and won’t interfere with your flavors. If this doesn’t work for you Pat, just give us a call so we can discuss your dish in more detail. Thanks for writing! ~ Chef Kevin

Judy in Billings is facing a not-so-unusual cooking dilemna - too much pepper and heat in her dish. In this case, the dish in crisis is pasta e fagioli, a hearty bean, pasta, and usually tomato dish that is an Italian staple. Pasta fagioli can tend toward a soup or stew consistency depending on the recipe. As a general principal, battling an over-spiced dish is always difficult and the rule of thumb is to …. make more. Chef Barb recommends doubling the recipe and mixing the two preparations since this dish freezes very well. Or, if the pasta fagioli has been prepared as a stew, you might consider diluting it with more tomato broth and adding some additional pasta and create a more soup-like consistency.

Marie in Rochester has got some overheated (spicy) gumbo on her hands, and needs to tone it down a notch for those of her guests tonight who may be a little tongue-tender. She suspects that, since she has already cut the spicy ingredients in the recipe, the sausage is the culprit. How can she put out the fire?

Option 1: Add More Volume
The most sensible option for turning down the heat would be to add more of everything else in the recipe except for the spice, and namely the milder-flavored ingredients. This will, however, increase both the volume and the cost of your dish.

Option 2: Add More Rice
If you have already mixed in the rice and it is still too hot, you may add more rice, or perhaps divide the gumbo into two portions and add rice only to one of them, and let your guests know there are a ‘hot’ batch and a ‘hotter’ batch.

Q: Amy asks: “I have inadvertently added way too much hot pepper flakes to a pot of soup. How do I remove some of the excess heat without starting over?”

A: We’ve all done it! Too much of a too good spice in our soup, stew, or sauce. Listen now to suggestions for reducing the “heat” of your dish. Although 9 times out of 10 you’ll have to cook some more, it’s rare that you’ll need to start it all over again.