oldie but a goodie, I use this with hot cherry peppers to make storebought-like pickled hot cherry peppers

Posted by maineapples z4 ME on Sun, Sep 11, 05 at 3:15

Pickled Sport Peppers

2 lb sport or serrano peppers
6 cups vinegar
2 cups water

Place the peppers into a large pot. Add the vinegar and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Ladle peppers into sterile jars, and fill to the top with the liquid, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Tap jars on the counter to remove air bubbles. Place two piece lids on the jars.

Place jars in the rack of a large pot, and fill with enough water to cover the jars completely. Bring to a boil, and boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

I would make hot sauce - the folks over at the hot pepper forum have some great recipes. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg0709485510119.html?58

I didn't grow serranos this year but I'm planning on growing them next year, any tips on growing them?
Thanks!

If I had a good supply of serranos I would use them often in soups, sauces and other cooked dishes to adjust the 'heat' level. In any cooked sauce based on chiles I would use them in combination with mild chiles, varying the proportion of each to get the right balance.

Serranos are good in guacamole. If you like your guacamole on the picante side you can use more than you might think, because avocado mutes the hotness. To me, the best guacamole contains nothing but dead ripe avocadoes, chiles, onion and salt. Grind the finely chopped chiles, onion and salt together using a molcajete and tejolote or mortar and pestle. Then mash in the avocado and mix, leaving the guacamole slightly lumpy.

Jim

ive a bumper crop of them too and have had all summer. what i do with them is to run them thru a grinder... seeds and all along with the couple habs and such that have ripened too early also. to this mush i add garlic powder, salt, a tad of sugar, other spices to taste. oh yeah, run a lime thru the grinder too, the whole thing. add enough vinegar to where it is thick but not runny.

taste it, if its blow-yer-head-off hot add a touch more sugar. put into 8 oz jelly jars and HWB for fifteen mins.

i do this along with making pickles or pickled jalepenos and the brine from those works fine for this. a bit too hot to eat on its own say like salsa on chips but as an ingredient in other things this stuff is indespensible in our cooking. a little goes a long way

prairie_love, how are you prepping them for the freezer? Are you seeding them & if so, have you found an easy way to do it?

I've seeded a bunch, sliced & frozen them, and now am letting them dry out. I thought I might get something like chili powder out of them, but don't know how to grind them when they are dry.

PL,

I would closely follow an approved recipe if making a sauce to BWB or would pressure process for 35 min for pints and half pints. You don't have to add all that vinegar if pressure can and it will remove some of the pepper heat.

Cut the pods in half & scoop out the placenta and seeds and that will really reduce the heat level.

Cut in half and dehydrate at 125° if you want for flakes and powder. They are dry enough when an ordinary food mill or coffee grinder will powder them. The only way to know if dry enough for sure is to test a couple pods in the grinders. There are a few tricks to dehydrating. The last things to dry enough to powder are the seeds. Dry the pods just enough that the grinder blades will powder everything except the seeds and use a sieve to sift out the seeds. I like my mills to have offset blades, but this is not entirely necessary.

And you could go totally wild and try fermenting a batch!

jt

I'm sorry I hadn't got back to this thread. My home computer has "issues" with gardenweb so I don't check as often over the weekend as I should.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas! First to answer the questions - no I don't really have any tips on growing serranos except full sun. All of my peppers have been far more productive since we moved to a new home and they really have a full day's sun. As for freezing, I do not prep at all, simply wash and toss in the freezer. I don't seed them until I use them and not always even then.

Jimster, those are all good suggestions and often what I use frozen ones for, but a few extra ideas there.

jt - do you know where I can find an approved recipe for hot sauce? I looked at the thread that lamalu linked (thank you!) and I just worry about which are safe ways to prepare it. I am not experienced enough to judge just by looking at it.

What do fermented peppers taste like and can you do it with any kind?

Thanks again,
Ann

Ann,

I use the very bottom method at the link below. Just salt and peppers. No need to peel.

Fermented pepper mash tastes very vinegary.

jt

Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preservation

Sheesh. I read more about the fermented peppers. I'm not ready for that undertaking. But I think that is what I really was after - when I am referring to "hot sauce" I mean something similar to tabasco. I have a bunch of habaneros too that I thought I could make a hot sauce from. But from what I have now read, it sounds like a "hot sauce" is really only made by fermenting, is that right? Maybe one year, but not now.

I ended up doing a bunch of serranos in the marinated pepper recipe Linda Lou posted last year. I like this marinade with jalapenos a lot, we'll see if the serranos are too hot.

Ann

I'm trying my hand at fermenting peppers, Ann. They are do to be done around Oct. 23rd. I guess they're perking along since they are maintaining their own 80º and smell like beer. I'll have to let you know what my end results are. Oh, I used Jalepinos and a couple of Thais.

Ann,

It bugs me to no end that I can't give you a simple hot pepper sauce recipe that can be boiling water canned. A year or two ago I might have linked to a hundred or more sauce recipes, but spending time here has made me very food safety aware.

I'm confident that my fermenting is safe, but I don't share end result with others and won't until is tested safe by an extension office or univ etc.

I would suggest going with the Annie's Salsa recipes.

jt

Ann, I see you found the tomato-based hot sauce I posted last year, so hopefully that gives you what you need.

Speaking as one who was stupid enough to grind dried peppers in my food processor in the house (and lived to tell about it), you might want to grind outdoors. I ended up filling my kitchen with a cloud of cayenne dust. (Food processors are not airtight!) I'm only grateful it wasn't the dried habaneros. It was a memorable experience. One I never want to repeat.

Carol

jt - I've made lots of Annie's Salsa - I love it! That's why I was looking for something a bit different. As Carol points out, I did find another thread with an easy hot sauce. I think I'll give it a try.

Carol - yes, I saw your comments regarding grinding peppers and so have been too scared to try doing that myself!

Thanks all.
Ann

I would love to get some Serrano seeds. I have some Devil's Tongue, would you Ike to trade 10 for 10?

pegasus- Not only is this thread almost 7 and a half years old, but it's the wrong forum for trading. Check out the Seed Exchange or even the Hot Pepper forums.

Rodney