When did this start? Pasilla Pepper ≠ Poblano Pepper!
NO! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING... quite frankly, not even close!
For the sake of this discussion we may as well throw the Ancho Pepper in as well, it seems to me the problem started with grocery store produce departments putting up the easiest sign to find, but just today I had a chef ask for pasilla and he wanted poblano. If this guy is getting it wrong (he's very sharp) many must be.
- Poblano peppers are most frequently mislabeled as Pasilla. They will have a wide top and a narrow base; they will be about the size of a small hand. They are often dark green, but can be lighter green as well. They are less spicy than a jalapeno and when you cut them will smell very similar to a green pepper.
- Ancho peppers are just dried Poblano peppers.
- Pasilla peppers are also dried, but they are dried Chilaca chilies not Poblano!
While I'm on the subject... here is another one that I get a lot! Are scallions and green onions also the same thing? Spring onions?
Green onions and scallions are actually the same thing! They are either harvested very young from the regular bulb-forming onions we are familiar with, or they can come from other varieties that actually never form bulbs.
Spring onions on the other hand, look similar to scallions, but you'll notice that they have small onion bulbs at the base. These onions come from the varietals that produce bulbs and are basically more mature versions of scallions. They are planted as seedlings in the late fall and then harvested the next spring, thus the word "spring" in the name. Spring onions are sweeter and mellower than regular onions, but the greens are more intense in flavor than scallions.
The confusion here may lie in the fact that other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom call green onions, spring onions...
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