[CH] Re: Need Jalapeno Popper Help.

Graeme Caselton (gcaselton@easynet.co.uk)
Sat, 3 Jan 1998 08:45:12 +0000 

Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 18:27:28 -0800
From: Dayton Skelly <cav@earthlink.net>
[snip]
>Any idea what I'm doing wrong or any "Popper" recipes.

JALAPENO POPPERS

15 big old fat jalapenoes, sliced and gutted;
3/4 bar cream cheese.
1/2 canister *fat-free* sour cream (no lie)
1/2 lb finely ground hot country sausage.
2 fresh picked habs from the bushes in my hallway
heavy sprinkle of ground super chiles, deseeded before grinding.


Nuke the cream cheese until mushy, then mix with the cooked sausage,
the
fake sour cream, and the pureed habs.  Fill the jalapeno cavities to
overflowing (really crumble the sausage), sprinkle the chile powder
on
liberally, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Remove poppers and let
cool.

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PERFECT POPPERS by Scott Sehlhorst

(edited by Judy
There are essentially 5 functional parts of the perfect popper.
1) The pepper
2) The filling
3) The initial batter
4) The breading
5) The final batter

This recipe is for 150-200 poppers

The pepper
Fresh jalapenos.  A potato peeler with a pointed end is the perfect
tool for deseeding.  The radius of the peeler allows you to make a
hole about 1 cm in diameter, which is optimized for efficient seed
removal, effective stuffing of popper, and minimal leakage (more on
that later).  Stab the pepper adjacent to the stem, with the stem on
the concave side of your peeler, remove, turn pepper roughly 1 radian
and repeat.  After 3 or 4 stabs, you will have seperated the stem
from the rest of the pepper. Pull out, with slight twisting motion,
and you will remove most of the seeds.  A little additional scraping
may be required to get out the innards.
Put aside and repeat until done

The filling:
Mix equal weights of cream cheese, finely shredded cheddar (sharp or
v.sharp), and finely shredded Monterey jack.  My batch used 8 ounces
of each. Mix these togethor in a bowl, until additional mixing makes
no change in consistency.

The batters:                     ;
Both of them have basically the same ingredients.  The differences
are in
consistency (and time of preparation).  Don't use milk for the
batter.  It
won't grab the pepper, because of the waxy consistency.  Beer works
best of
beer, water, & milk.  Use generic fried vegetable batter (I used the
Chuck
Wagon stuff), and an equal part of flour.  Season with garlic salt,
black
pepper, onion salt, and powdered cayenne for color (both in the
batter and
in the unsuspecting faces of your guests).  I used about 1 teaspoon
of each
to about 1/2 cup each of chuck wagon stuff and flour.

For the initial batter, you want it very thick, thicker than pancake
batter.
This is to hold the breading to the popper.  If you add too much beer
at the
start, add flour to thicken.  I think it took about half a beer for
this.

For the final batter, you want it very thin, it should take less than
a
second for the batter to 'climb' the tines of a fork when removed and
held
vertically over the batter.  This has an added bonus of making those
little
crunchy things to eat with the poppers.  This was still less than a
whole beer, so don't get too carried away- make it thick ad add the
beer in small amts. Remember, don't make this until you're serving
them!

The breading:
Just a plate with a pile of white cornmeal, dry.

The process:
After coring a sink full of peppers, stuff them all full of the
cheese.  Use
your pinkie to pack the cheese in good, leaving about a 1/4 inch
divot on the
end of the pepper (recessed cheese, in case I'm not being clear).
Then
line up your thick batter and corn meal, and an oven tray lined with
aluminum foil.  Dip the pepper in the batter, holding by the cheese
and tip ends. Allow as much of the excess batter as you can stand to
drip off.  Then place the pepper in the corn meal.  Pick up a handful
of meal and bury the pepper. Place your hand on top of the pile
(cupped), and apply some light pressure to help everything pack
together.  Pick up the pepper and shake off the excess meal.  Again,
handle the pepper by the tips, it helps minimize the bald spots.

Place the pepper on the tray, and repeat a million (OK, 200, but it
seems
like a million) times.  Place the pan in the freezer.  This is called
flash
freezing.  After about half an hour (the time it takes to fill the
next tray)
remove the first tray, and place all of the poppers in a big ziplock
bag. Put the bag back in the freezer.  Wait overnight or longer.

The serving of and eating of poppers:
Heat up grease in your fry daddy. Make the final (thin) batter.
Get some of your frozen poppers.  Some of the breading may have come
off in spots, don't sweat it.  Dip the popper in the thin batter and
put in the
grease. Cook until golden brown.  Conveniently, this is also the point
where the cheese is melted, yet the pepper isn't overcooked.

Pop in yer mouth

Possible variations:
A friend suggested that the initial batter/breading might have
nothing to
do with the success of the final batter sticking, that the freezing
may be
the trick there.  If true, It would save a lot of work!  I haven't
had a
chance to try it yet. Please tell me how these turn out when you try
them!

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Cheers,

Graeme

Get hot =>
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~gcaselton/chile/chile.html
Get Jurassic =>
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~gcaselton/fossil/fossil.html

==>Blackadder : Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
      Baldrick : Yeah! It's like goldy & bronzy, only it's made of
iron.

                                 From TV series: "Blackadder"