a mixed bag (of peppers)

July 28, 2016 12:48 PM

i've been gifted a gallon bag of different peppers and would like some ideas on how to be use them. varieties are jalapeño, serrano, anaheim, chile dearbol, poblano, cascabel, and guajillo peppers. the larger ones have 3-4 and the smaller ones about 10. i would like to avoid something that involves setting my oven to 500 degrees, but might be wiling to try. also, i am (mostly) cooking for one.
posted by lescour to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

An FPP about chili relleno.

There's also the web site of Pati Jinich, who grew up in a family of Mexico City restaurateurs but now lives in the U.S. and is the host of the PBS series Pati's Mexican Table. She's good about making sure that the ingredients in her recipes are available in U.S. supermarkets.
posted by XMLicious at 1:10 PM on July 28, 2016

Wow, I'm envious. :) You can make all kinds of goodies with that kind of a selection. The first that comes to mind is a nice pico de gallo. I saw many recipes on Google, some of which use jalapeños and others use serranos. I personally like serranos, but both should be quite tasty. And no oven involved.
posted by strelitzia at 1:11 PM on July 28, 2016

No oven required: if you have a gas stove, you can roast the peppers right over the flame. Just keep turning them til they're crispy. Pro tip: do not stick your face over the smoking pepper and breathe in. Trust me on this.

You can make thai curry paste which is so much better than store-bought it's not even funny.

If you have Hatch peppers a) I am really jealous and b) you can make chile verde
posted by ananci at 1:21 PM on July 28, 2016

Naturally pickled peppers or DIY Siracha. For the siracha, use any peppers you want, they don't have to be birds eye or thai, it won't be like store-bought siracha, but it tastes damn good using other peppers.

Both are no-cook recipes, and both are so damn awesome.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:30 PM on July 28, 2016

Peppers freeze whole just fine, if you get weary of them. Wash and dry first. I prefer to put them in small zip-locs and then put those inside a larger freezer-thickness zip-loc.

They chop up pretty well frozen, too. You don't necessarily have to thaw them first.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:34 PM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

It just occurred to me that you could use the Anaheim peppers to make Green Chile cornbread. This is some good eatin' right here. And worth the oven.
posted by strelitzia at 1:35 PM on July 28, 2016

Whatever you end up doing with the peppers, you can put the remaining odds and ends and seeds in a jar of vinegar. Then you'll end up with a jar of spicy vinegar for putting in soups.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Slice them in half, de-core them, and dry them. Grind them to powder.
The chili powder that you make at home is at least three times better than chili powder that you buy.
posted by the Real Dan at 2:09 PM on July 28, 2016

You can roast them over a flame like ananci suggests or on a gas grill or in the oven. Put them in a sealed bag while they're hot and wait a few minutes, then the skins will slip off. You can then chop them up and freeze them to use as you wish in recipes. I freeze mine in a thin layer so I can just break of a chunk of chilis as needed. If you roast them, you will be surprised how condensed that giant bag gets. Chilis cook down quite a bit.
posted by LKWorking at 2:12 PM on July 28, 2016

Get some corn and make/freeze a few batches of this Sweet Corn and Pepper Soup. It's delicious.
posted by cecic at 2:18 PM on July 28, 2016

This might be obvious, but either wear gloves or don't touch any sensitive body parts like your eyes for a couple days after you process them!
posted by aniola at 2:48 PM on July 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I would make a couple fresh things and then roast the rest by type. Then roughly purée (probably after deseeding) and freeze them into ice cubes. Maybe make a few with some cilantro thrown in. Then I could add fresh pepper flavor to any kind of recipe I wanted over the next year or so, mixing and matching for desired spice level and flavor.

Melt a poblano ice cube and mix into softened butter, salt, and some honey for an awesome sweet and spicy spread for corn or any vegetable or on steak.

Thaw out a combination of peppers and simmer with tomato and some dried spices for enchilada sauce.

Use brighter green ones with other fresh herbs and some top notch olive oil for a spicy pesto you can stir into creamy soups.

Drop the jalepeno cubes into some slow simmering chili, or add them to your cornbread recipe for a really warming winter dish.

Blend up guajillo with mayo and spread on good bread, layer with avocado, pulled chicken or pork, some cabbage for a glorious sandwich.

You could make green and red sauces for Christmas tamales, too!
posted by Mizu at 5:16 PM on July 28, 2016

if you have a gas stove, you can roast the peppers right over the flame

First make sure you have an actual vent fan above the stove, not one of those fan hoods that just blows everything back into the room.

Roasting over an open flame is really the way to go.
posted by yohko at 5:42 PM on July 28, 2016

You want to make real, not-from-powder chili. I make large batches of the broth starter (toasted dried chiles blended with just enough broth to make a paste) and freeze it in quart bags.
posted by supercres at 8:26 PM on July 28, 2016

Windfall!

A lot of good suggestions here. Some of these will air-dry nicely, depending on your climate/air conditioning situation. Since I didn't see it specifically mentioned upthread, the classic way to do this is a ristra. I have successfully dried chiles even in humid-ass DC (albeit in direct sun in a climate-controlled kitchen).

Chiles de arbol, poblanos, and guajillos all dry well.

The jalapenos and serranos will be better used fresh in salads or pico.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:58 PM on August 1, 2016