Tangled Branches: Satiated
riveting tales of how we sustain ourselves
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Hot Pepper Jelly 1.0
I think it was Ki who planted the idea in my mind. I never even tasted Hot Pepper Jelly before I made it yesterday so I didn't really know what to expect. However, the flavor I imagined was hotter than the reality of this batch. And if I had followed Ki's lead and used Habaneros I might have gotten the heat level I imagined. As it was, I intended to use 100% red ripe Serranos instead of the bell peppers plus 10 Jalapeños the recipe called for. I used the recipe from the leaflet in the Sure-Jell package (and on their website). They wanted a total of 4 cups of finely chopped peppers to 1 cup of vinegar, 5 cups of sugar and a packet of Sure-Jell. I thought by using all Serranos, seeded, I'd a have a pretty red jelly with pieces of pepper suspended in it (no seeds to ugly it up) and that surely 4 cups of Serranos, even seeded, would be enough heat. And maybe it would have been, but I only had enough Serranos for 3 cups and had to make up the final cup with ripe chocolate bell pepper plus a few assorted others.
The color is pretty, just like I hoped for. Taste, well I don't know. I'm not all that keen on sweet sweet things and this has almost a cup of sugar in every jar. It does taste of peppers, with just a tiny little tingling of capsaicin. I tried it on toast this morning, and I'm not about to give up my hibiscus jam for this. I think it might have a future as an ingredient and not something to eat on its own. For lunch today, I mixed it with mayonnaise and coarse mustard as the dressing for a shrimp salad. I expect it would make a good base for a BBQ sauce, or a ham glaze, or maybe even for the sweetening in a mustard recipe I plan to try. Any other ideas?
posted by Entangled at 5:13 PM
4 Comments:
Enjoyed scrolling through your blog! Just an FYI: Hot pepper jelly is lovely mixed with (or poured over a block of) cream cheese and spread on crackers. Nice color for the holiday season as well! Cheers!
Nancy: Thanks for stopping by! I'll try the cream cheese idea for the pepper jelly - it really does sound good. I'm debating whether to make another batch trying for more heat.
Wow, this hot pepper jelly just looks brilliant and amazing! Thank you for such great information, this is all new to me!
WORC: If you make some let me know how it turns out. My peppers are finished for this year, so no more experiments until next summer. Seems like a long way off.
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