Help! What are sweet red chile flakes?

[kendra]

I've been making each chili (with some healthy changes) from the cookbook "Chili Nation." I'm up to Delaware, which calls for an ingredient called "sweet red chile flakes." It also says that these are available from Pendery's. I have gone online to Pendery's and they carry no such ingredient. I can find red pepper flakes which are dehydrated red peppers, but I don't think it's the same thing. And I'm certain it's not crushed red pepper flakes since it calls for a 1/2 cup of them and that's way too much of this ingredient to be comfortable. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Kendra

[funnybone]

Could it be dehydrated red peppers? I know Penzey's has them.

Here is the link:

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-local/Sof...619+1000434093

[Beth]

They are dehydrated red bell peppers as opposed to the hot varieties. I have seen them in Penzey's catalog inthe past, but I cannot find them in the current issue. I have seen them in the grocery store too. If you can't find them, I would use fresh chopped red bell pepper, about 4x the amount of dried called for. Would that work in your recipe? You might need to decrease some liquid a bit, because the fresh will give off a little water if the cook, and the dried would tend to absord water.

I called Penzey's -- look under bell pepper in the spices, then both red and green are listed below, so the key is to look for bell peppers if you want to order.