Connoisseurs will pay high prices for chiles grown in certain regions or dried under special conditions. As you familiarize yourself with chiles, you will come to understand why. Each chile brings much more than heat to a dish. The most important things to know are whether the chile is fresh or dried and how hot it is. When using the recipes in this book, avoid trying to modulate heat by varying the quantity of a particular chile.
Heat is merely one of many flavor components.
Varying the amount of a given chile in a dish may throw it out of balance. Below, I have described briefly the chiles I believe most essential. Later on, I have listed some mail-order suppliers. This long, green chile is the most widely grown mild chile. Pale green and 5 to 7 inches long, it can be a bit anemic in flavor, but is much improved by roasting, particularly over a wood fire.