Jalapeno Poppers

I wanted to use my fish batter recipe in something new, and thought of making jalapeno poppers. When the garden starts producing later this summer, this should be good for some other varieties of peppers also.

Batter

I will save some typing and point you HERE for the batter recipe. Basically I am substituting stuffed jalapenos in place of the fish.

Stuffing the jalapenos

I made this up as I went, just do it to taste. Use some imagination and add whatever you would like. I started by frying about 5 pieces of my homemade bacon (check it out HERE) You can use store-bought bacon, of course. Make it crisp then break it up into fairly small pieces.

Next I added the crumbled bacon to about 8 ounces of whipped sour cream. Then I added a bit of salt, freshly-cracked black pepper, garlic, and onion powder



Next I picked out 12 of the largest jalapenos I could find. First, let me strongly advise you to use rubber gloves when working with hot peppers. I used to work in an emergency room and every summer at least one person would come in with terrible pain, because they were working with hot peppers but no gloves on.

I slit them lengthwise on one side so that I could make a pocket for the filling



Then I used a very small spoon to scoop out the seeds, being careful not to break or crack the jalapeno since I needed a pocket to place the filling.



Then using a spoon (you could use a pastry stuffer) I filled the pepper with the filling



Following the fish batter directions, the first step in coating the fish is to roll the fish in the dry ingredients on the cookie sheet. Jalapenos are not sticky like fish so I had to improvise. I didn't want to dip them in water or milk because it would have been too much liquid. So I wet my fingers a little bit and rubbed the outside of the pepper, to break up the surface tension on the slick peppers. Then I could roll it in the dry ingredients and it stuck fairly well



Then I rolled it in the batter



Then rolled in the dry ingredients one more time



I brought the peanut oil (you can use other types) up to 375 degrees and placed the peppers in the oil. After a few minutes they turned golden brown. I pulled them out and drained them on newspaper. Brown-paper grocery bags work well also.



These turned out really good. I made a mental note to make these the next time I have a group of people over, or there is a church event or something like that. I also want to try smoking the filled peppers first, then adding the batter and deep-frying. After all "If it's already good, it will probably be better when smoked."