jalapeño rellenos

Chile poppers relleno style or mini rellenos, whatever. 

Here, the chiles are raw, not roasted first. The only cooking they have is inside their batter in butter by a sauté pan stovetop, not deep fried in oil. 

The chiles are getting old in the crisper. Something must be done with them or else they are wasted.

This cheese did not move at my local grocery so it was discounted by half. A lot of good things will not move there. It is a particular persnickety odd clientele. 

This is where it gets messy. The flour helps the batter adhere. 

The remaining flour is mixed with water. The amount and the thickness gauged using common sense. An egg added and whisked. The amount and thickness gauged again. Flavors are added using common sense, here salt, pepper, chipotle pepper powder in moderation with sense that is common. Masa harina added in amount using common sense.

My common sense failed and the batter too thick. Guess how that is fixed.

Now the batter has the Old World flavor of masa harina. The flavor cannot be topped. 

It takes three turns to fry them in butter. Along the way blank spots appear. The batter can be added directly to the pan, a tablespoon spread out a line of batter onto the pan with the partially cooked relleno placed on top. It adheres as a new coat. At low heat fresh batter can be added while cooking to suit you, cheese can melt out without spattering oil. The chiles cook and soften. 

This is not true to any cuisine. It's merely something I made up. I like it. Maybe you won't. 

Jalapeño poppers

The only cheese that I have on hand is mozzarella di bufala that I picked up to make pizza, and I may still do that but tonight I wanted this. This cheese is completely inappropriate for jalapeño poppers. Not because it is mozzarella but because it is frankly too good for this sort of thing. It's a careless marriage and and the profligate waste is unjustifiable. The finer ingredient cannot help a crude product be better. 

The manner of production and the photography caused problems for the wontons. Half were torn open. A thin batter was prepared that contained crunchy bread crumbs to create a new coating for the damaged pieces and repair their rips and holes. 

The wontons stuck together in the package. The cornstarch coating on each individual wrapper had become absorbed during refrigerated storage. They were carefully separated and recoated with cornstarch. The fresh coating facilitated sealing the rolls and might not be a bad idea in any case.

A deep bowl of corn starch is prepared to refresh the wontons which are close to reverting to a square clump of dough.

Experimental jalapeño poppers

The bowl of white stuff is dry corn starch.  I did something different this time and painted it dry on the upper corner of each wonton wrapper then dampened it when rolled to seal it tightly as possible. For some reason, the carrots shown on the plate are in the can with the sliced jalapeños. They taste exactly the same, so I sliced them too and included them. That way, one small can of jalapeños worked perfectly with one package of wontons.  The dark orange cheese shown here is cheap cheddar that was on sale.  It's awful and I don't care for it.  After the first package I switched the cheese to queso anejo (aged) for the remaining 2/3. This batch took three small tins of chile peppers and three packages of wonton wrappers, about 130 total. The process is a bit tedious and messy.

The purpose of this trial is to determine if these could be baked instead of deep-fried, in preparation of Deena's fund raiser three days off. The thing is, they must be deep-fired in batches, a few break open, the cheese leaks out into the oil, burns, the oil must be continuously cleaned, then discarded, it's a mess.

These were rubbed with olive oil. They might also be sprayed which would be even easier.

Conclusion: They're tougher. The mouth-feel is different, but not altogether bad. They taste equally great. It's a lot easier, they're entirely passable, but deep-frying is still better. So it gets down to a trade off between convenience and excellence. I think I'll stick with frying in batches. Besides, it's dramatic, a little bit dangerous and it's fun.

Jalapeño poppers

Jalapeño poppers made from canned jalapeño peppers, cheddar cheese, and won ton wrappers.

Sealed tightly with water with cornstarch glue. It's important to seal while rolling so that no cheese escapes. Otherwise you get a huge mess in the oil.

Oil at 350℉.

These cook within a few minutes. Serve immediately, the crispy goodness is fleeting.