Sunday, June 3, 2012

Recipe: Candied poblano peppers

As happy as I was with the corn flan, it needed a garnish.  I wanted something Latin, considering its source, but also something equally versatile as a dessert or for other occasions.  Poblanos are always nice with corn, but a tad spicy for some people's "dessert" preconceptions, so they needed to be sweetened up a bit.  I thought of a pepper jelly, but there's a reason its usually done with red peppers - between the cooking and the vinegar, the chlorophyll of the poblanos would be lost.  Luckily, I made that invert sugar a while back - it turned into a nice glaze with almost the same effect of a jelly without cooking the peppers.  By using the microwave method of peeling the peppers, I kept a purer flavour and cooked them just as much as needed to soften up a bit.  I was very careful in the use of vinegar to avoid a negative effect on the chlorophyll, and used rice vinegar since it has a lower acidity to start with.  The result was sweet and tangy with a nice bit of zip from the poblanos.  Since I wouldn't classify this as a preserve (like a pepper jelly), I would recommend making it as close to when you need it as possible, but it will store nicely in the fridge short term.



 You will need:


2                           poblano peppers
15ml / 1Tbs          invert sugar
1.25ml / 1/4tsp     rice vinegar
pinch                    salt



Method:


 - cook and peel the poblano peppers using the microwave method
 - trim up any rough edges and cut the peppers into strips
 - warm up the invert sugar slightly to soften it
 - add the rice vinegar
 - gently mix in the strips of poblano
 - season with salt
 - let cool so the glaze thickens up again
 - use as desired











No comments:

Post a Comment

Impressions, thoughts, comments? Let me know.