Jalapeno Poppers for Dummies

July 18, 2010 7:04 PM

I have decided I would like to make jalapeno poppers.

Please could you give me your deliciousest recipes. I tried them at this place over the river several months back, and they instantly became one of my favourite things in the whole world, and now I would like to make them at home.

I know the core principle of these things is that they are decadent and are designed to make you sick into your mouth after about a dozen of them, so healthier, lighter recipes will receive bonus points in my Big Black Book Of Metafilter. But mainly I want them tasty and simple and if you can give me the measurements in metric, that would also be good.

Also if anybody in Brisbane could tell me where to buy jalapenos that would be good.

And I don't want to cheat by making this two questions but since I'm going to have a big boiling pot of oil in my kitchen I should make the best of it and fix a deep fried snack for my girlfriend, who cannot tolerate spicy things, so any suggestions along those lines would be appreciated.

posted by turgid dahlia to Food & Drink (34 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh god I can taste them already please hurry
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:05 PM on July 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

Not answering your question at all, but I suggest wearing some latex gloves while you're cutting/seeding the jalapenos. I tried this very thing about 10 years ago and haven't since because my hands were on fire for HOURS. Maybe somebody else has suggestions that are more elegant, but truly: beware.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:08 PM on July 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

I made this recipe for Baked Jalapeno Poppers and it was devoured in no-time flat, including by Paula Deen-deep-fried-everything-devotees.
posted by banannafish at 7:08 PM on July 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

Great. Now I want jalapeno poppers, too. ;-)

Recipes are all over the 'net. Basically: jalapenos, cream cheese, milk, grated Monterey jack or mozzarella cheese, panko or bread crumbs. They're pretty simple, really.

You don't have to fry them, though: you can bake them in a 350°F (176°C) oven. (Here's a baked jalapeno poppers recipe.)
posted by goblinbox at 7:13 PM on July 18, 2010

Guy makes these, but they are baked, not fried. Very tasty. And hot.

1 dozen poppers:
6 jalapeno peppers, about 2 1/2-inches long
1/2 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
1 1/2 ounce cream cheese
1 large eggs
1/3 cup unflavored dry breadcrumbs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or less, to taste
Sour cream for dipping

Lightly oil baking sheet and set aside. Cut peppers in half lengthwise; scrape out and save seeds. Preheat oven to 425.

In a small bowl, mix together the Cheddar, cream cheese, garlic powder, chipotle pepper, cumin, black pepper, cayenne, and seeds (if hot, try half of them) from the jalapenos; fill each pepper half with some of mixture.

In one bowl, lightly beat egg until combined and frothy. In another bowl, stir together breadcrumbs and salt. Roll each filled pepper in egg, then in breadcrumbs.

Place on a baking sheet. Bake until tender and browned, for about 15 minutes. Serve warm, with sour cream (or sour cream mixed with blue cheese dressing) for dipping.
posted by crush-onastick at 7:13 PM on July 18, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm mentally blacklisting anyone who says that you can bake foods that should be fried. No, you cannot, it does not taste the same.

Kudos to you on planning to deep-fry!
posted by InsanePenguin at 7:16 PM on July 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

I don't have a recipe for you, but(t) a warning.

A guy I work with once brought in an enormous platter of them which we all devoured. Talk about about burning sensations the next day.

So, don't eat them all at once no matter how delicious they are.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:16 PM on July 18, 2010

deep fried snack for your girlfriend - deep fried cream cheese wontons -

wonton wrappers
cream cheese - you can add seasoning here like crab meat or green onions or pepper or chutney - really, anything tasty with cream cheese
place a dollop of cream cheese in the wonton - seal the wonton in any shape you like. i find water does the best job of sealing the wonton together.

fry it.

very easy and good and customizable and you'll already have cream cheese from the poppers.
posted by nadawi at 7:17 PM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

You have to try Pioneer Woman's Bacon Jalapeno Poppers. Grown men weep with joy when they see me coming. When I'm carrying a tray of these poppers. I'm not kidding. And yes, wear gloves. And get out every seed. Super easy to make, and there's bacon.
posted by iconomy at 7:20 PM on July 18, 2010 [8 favorites]

here's a good recipe for the fried wontons - if you want to add seasonings, just mix it into the cream cheese before you put it in the wontons.
posted by nadawi at 7:20 PM on July 18, 2010

I'm mentally blacklisting anyone who says that you can bake foods that should be fried.

Hey! It's not our fault he said "healthier, lighter recipes," now, is it! ;-) LONG LIVED THE FRIED JALAPEñO POPPER!
posted by goblinbox at 7:21 PM on July 18, 2010

An answer for your girlfriend from a former Southerner in the U.S.: Fried Pickles!
It may sound weird, but they're delicious and not at all spicy.

Here's how you do it:
-Get some (one medium sized jar) sliced dill pickles (sometimes they're called hamburger pickles) the more pickled the better
-make a "bath" with one egg and around about 180 mL of milk (I did the metric conversion just to be extra accommodating!)
-get about 120 g of flour and add salt and pepper to taste
-dip the pickle slices in the bath and then coat them in the flour before dropping them in the oil
-cook them for 3-4 minutes or until they're golden brown.
-eat them plain or dip them in Ranch dressing
posted by Quizicalcoatl at 7:23 PM on July 18, 2010 [4 favorites]

crush-onastick's recipe looks about right. I would suggest, after you fill the peppers with cream cheese that you dip them in flour, and then refrigerate, or even better, put them in the deep freeze for a time. Once they've firmed up, dip em in the egg and breadcrumbs, and then deep fry them.
posted by crunchland at 7:36 PM on July 18, 2010

Try the Pioneer Woman's recipe above with some grilled chicken added. Yum yum. Seconding get every single seed out and all of the vein too. The darker the pepper the less hot they are going to be. I have made these on my George Forman grill if that counts for a healthier recipe, just ignore the bacon part.
posted by tamitang at 8:50 PM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh by the way, we call them Armadillo toes.
posted by tamitang at 8:51 PM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

We made jalapeno poppers in the oil that was used to deep fry a turkey one Thanksgiving. I stuffed them with a bit of mashed sweet potato in addition to the cream cheese.
posted by sciencegeek at 9:17 PM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

fix a deep fried snack for my girlfriend, who cannot tolerate spicy things, so any suggestions along those lines would be appreciated.

I don't know what a jalapeno popper is, but if you can't pacify someone with beer-battered prawns, something's not right.

Chilli is optional on them, I understand.
posted by pompomtom at 9:19 PM on July 18, 2010

I made these for a 4th of July party a few years back. I've never felt so loved.

pro tip: Grill only a few at a time or you'll end up with a raging bacon grease fire.
posted by special-k at 9:28 PM on July 18, 2010

If you're deep-frying in a pot on the stove, I highly recommend getting a thermometer so you can keep the oil at the optimum temperature - @ 375. If it's too cold, your poppers will get soggy as they fry too slowly.
posted by gnutron at 9:35 PM on July 18, 2010

For the girlfriend:

Fried green tomatoes
Fried Sage (pro tip: toss with some baked garlic and parmesan before serving)
Deep fried sweet potato with syrup.
posted by special-k at 9:44 PM on July 18, 2010

So the real trick with deep frying things is to get them to come out as non-greasy as possible. This is achieved by using a thick foamy batter, keeping the oil between 180 and 190 C, and taking poppers out before they stop bubbling in the oil.

The batter is simple and as follows:
2 eggs
100 ml beer
120 g flour
salt, black pepper, and chili powder to taste.

beat eggs, then add beer, then the flour and spices, stirring to combine but don't overwork it.

Slice your jalapeños in half, and be sure to remove the seeds and ribs.

Your filling could be just plain cream cheese or sour cream, scallion cream cheese, a mixture of cheeses, or a mixture of cream cheese with roasted red pepper spread or avocado or whatever. I like to throw some hot sauce and ground cumin in mine, but suit yourself.

Stuff the jalapeño halves about 2/3 full, because the peppers will shrink in cooking, and you want to have a place on the inside for the batter to stick.

Dip the peppers in the batter, then pop them into the oil for about 5 minutes, or until the furious stream of bubbles they emit just starts to die down, and the batter is golden yellow (the hot oil that sticks to the outside of the fritter will cook it to golden brown as its drying).
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:19 PM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wait, see, here's where I'm dumb: I don't strictly recall anything about the poppers I've had besides their deliciousness, but I'm cutting them in half, removing all the nonsense, stuffing them with goodness, and then reassambling them, right? The moist batter is going to be sufficient to, uh, cohese them? Keep them coheded? Or is that the purpose of the freezing/refrigerating?
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:44 PM on July 18, 2010

You don't reassemble them. Just fill the cream cheese ( + whatever else), batter, breadcrumb and fry. You batter and breadcrumb no matter what. The freezing/refrigerating is just an optional step.
posted by special-k at 10:50 PM on July 18, 2010

Response by poster: Ahh, ok, that's how I got confused: I was under the impression that the poppers were whole jalapenos (with subtractions and additions, naturally), for that peppery crunch the whole way around. But these are like half-peppers. Jalapeno boats, if you will, filled with nom, yes?
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:52 PM on July 18, 2010

Response by poster: Also thanks for all this great advice so far guys, my mouth has been watering since about ten o'clock this morning, and thankfully it's nearly time to go home. I am sorry to all the deep frying enthusiasts but I do believe I am going to try crush-onastick's tasty-sounding baked method first, principally because I don't know that my cooktop would ever get hot enough to bring a pan of oil to 375 degrees, and also because I would feel mildly criminal tipping it all out when I was done, just tipping it all over the garden and the footpath, gallons of oil oozing through the waterways. The girl has requested crumbed cheese sticks, which sound weird, but I think they could be oven'd as an experiment.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:57 PM on July 18, 2010

Jalapeno boats, if you will, filled with nom, yes?
Yes. You'll still get the crunch all the way around from the nom batter.
posted by special-k at 11:01 PM on July 18, 2010

Also: If you want to share with the GF but she doesn't like spicy things try using some red jalapenos for hers. They are sweeter and much much less spicy.
posted by Saminal at 12:02 AM on July 19, 2010

nadawi: "deep fried snack for your girlfriend - deep fried cream cheese wontons -"

Those are a simplified Crab Rangoon, which is an East Coast Chinese Food favorite, and easy to do in oil on an electric stove: a package of cream cheese, a pound of crab, a bit of parsley, green onion, ginger and wrappers. Mix it all together with a dollop of soy sauce and put together as above.

As for the girlfriend, tempura is an art in itself. Very simple batters, pretty much an entirely unspicy style of cooking, and you can use it with just about anything. Broccoli, potato, green beans...but you know you'll want to just buy like a few pounds of shrimp and go for broke. I would. In addition, a nice tempura companion piece is the Strangers With Candy episode "Feather in the Storm" (Season 1, Episode 7).
posted by rhizome at 12:53 AM on July 19, 2010

You've gotten some good recipe advice and I note that you've elected to try the baking method - but if you ever do try frying in oil and find yourself needing to make two dishes in the same oil, please fry the mild/non-spicy item first, because the heat/spiciness can leech out into the oil and back into whatever you cook afterward, which wouldn't be ideal for someone who strongly dislikes that sort of thing.
posted by empyrean at 2:31 AM on July 19, 2010

Hey! It's not our fault he said "healthier, lighter recipes," now, is it! ;-)

Oh, I missed this. Am sad.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:01 AM on July 19, 2010

Response by poster: So, I gave it a whirl. The jalapenos I was able to secure were weird squat models but were still the right thing. I got a good cream cheese mix going, spooned it into the prepared peppers, and what the hell did I do wrong with the batter? Egg then breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs then egg, every direction multiple times, and it all just slid right off into the oil (oh, I fried them, too, despite what I said). Enough of it stayed on the sticky filling side but it was a massive fail on the slippy pepper side. I think I might scour the surface next time, see if a bit more sticks. Anyway, it was delicious, I used crush-onastick's recipe and fried those suckers in canola oil. Now I'm going to have a little nap and revisit this conundrum in the near future. Cheers!
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:07 AM on July 19, 2010

375 Fahrenheit is about 190 Celsius. That's what gnutron meant, I'm sure.
375 Celsius would be about 700+ Fahrenheit, and I wouldn't try that on my cooktop either.

(Apologies if I'm being Captain Obvious here.)
posted by dywypi at 7:04 AM on July 19, 2010

You can just cut the bottoms (or tops) off the fattest squattest jalepenos you can find, carefully scrape the innards out, and then pipe the filling back in with a pastry bag. Personally, if it's that much work, I don't make the food at home. Slicing in half is faster, cleaner and just as tasty. It also works with a variety of size and shapes of peppers. The hollowing & restuffing is just that much harder with long narrow peppers.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:58 AM on July 19, 2010

My absolute favorite recipe for poppers is this one: Jalapeno Poppers: Fire in the Hole!
posted by Cordelya at 6:23 PM on July 19, 2010