All the things I did with chiles/peppers this year

From Out of the frying pan . . . by Patrick Barber

November 3, 2009

I explored a variety of preservation methods for chiles this year. I didn’t set out to do this, but once I got started, I guess I got a little obsessed. Here are all the things I did with chiles and sweet peppers.

-- I got about 30 pounds of New Mexico-type green chiles from Westwind Gardens at the PSU Farmers Market. They roast the chiles at the market in a gas-fired rotating drum roaster. These chiles speak to my childhood flavor memories. I make them into a traditional New Mexico-style preparation, also called green chile. We freeze a lot every year. We buy them freshly roasted, then peel/seed/chop and freeze. For a lot more about green chile/s, including a recipe, see my recent post on my blog, Letter from Hen Waller.

-- Gathering Together Farm has these wonderful fleshy pimiento peppers. I have roasted/peeled/seeded a bunch. Some of which I packed in oil and vinegar and am keeping in the fridge. Some of which I am freezing.

-- I decided to freeze a stash of jalapeños and serranos to see if I could put up enough to last through the winter/spring. I halved and seeded them and froze them raw like berries (on a sheet, then in a jar). Since I’ll be mincing them and adding them to curries or whatever, I think they’ll be OK like that. I picked up this idea from an article in Saveur about chile peppers.

-- I made two kinds of pickled serranos: an Indian-style oil pickle (recipe here) and a Mexican-style serranos en escabeche. Both are really good. The escabeche is searingly hot and tangy. The Indian pickle is considerably milder for some reason.

It’s a Whole New Cookbook

From Out of the frying pan . . . by Patrick Barber

October 28, 2009

A lot of my cookbooks share one attribute: A wrinkled, crumb-impacted page that they will fall open to when set on the counter. That’s the recipe I love the most from that particular book. I am constantly surprised at how few recipes I generally cook from one book, even books that I adore. I find a few that I like, and stick with them. But surely there are others that are worthy, yes?

This week, whenever I cook, I’m aiming to cook a new-to-me recipe from an oft-used cookbook. Monday was Frijoles Negros con Chochoyotes from Diana Kennedy’s The Art of Mexican Cooking. Yesterday I baked scones to take to a board meeting; I let my King Arthur Flour Co All-Purpose Baking Cookbook fall open to the usual cheddar-scallion scone recipe, then flipped back and forth among the scones and decided on Curry-Ginger Scones.

Both of my forays into the unfamiliar were great! It is fun to try some new recipes, without having to buy new cookbooks. Kind of like “going shopping” by digging around in your closet a little more vigorously than usual.

What about you? Got any new recipes from old cookbooks that you’ve tried lately?