La Vera Smoked Sweet Paprika is also known as dulce. Much like its spicier cousin, this sweet paprika is made by drying freshly-harvested, ripe, red peppers in low-lying, adobe smoke houses. They are placed of smoking grills fired with slow-burning oak planks. After smoking, the paprika is milled by electrically powered stone wheels which must turn very slowly, as heat from friction adversely affects the signature color and flavor. 

Paprika can be made from several different varietals of the chile pepper family Capsicum annuum, though the different peppers all tend to be of the relatively long, tapered kind with thinner flesh. Fat, thick-fleshed sweet peppers, like a standard Bell pepper that you’ll find in your average grocery store, often don’t dry well enough to make a ground product and are prone to mold. They are valued for their bright red color as much as--or even more than--their flavor. The American Spice Trade Association, or ASTA, came up with a scale to measure paprika's color. The ASTA score goes from 50-180; 85 is a standard-grade color value. As the numbers go up, the color of the paprika is more saturated and vibrant.

Incorporate this with a 1:1 Cajun spice to smoked paprika ratio (more if your bottle at home is milder or less if it’s spicier). 

Finish off with 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce, and you’ve got a delicious jar of homemade chiu chow oil! (Feel free to re-season with up to a teaspoon of additional salt if needed. You may want to wait until it’s cooled first to get a more accurate read on the flavor.)