Using Chili Peppers as a fruit

[Shalmanese]

I made Chili the other night which involved toasting, deseeding and grinding some anaheim and guajillo peppers. Both of these are commonly described as very "fruity" peppers. I was in the middle of making a smoothie tonight when I spotted some left over chili powder and thought "why the hell not". In it went with some milk, sugar, bananas and vanilla. As I'm drinking it right now, I'm thinking it's actually pretty good. There's barely any heat since the peppers were deseeded and the fruity, smoky flavors are shining through.

Has anyone else experimented with using chili peppers as a fruit (as opposed to adjacent to fruit like a habanero-mango salsa)?

edit: Oh yeah, I used about 4 tablespoons of powder for a big glass worth, that's almost as much as I used for the entire chili the night before. You definitely want a pronounced flavor if you do this.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Shalmanese (log)

[msacuisine]

I live in the Arizona, where such things are not that uncommon. I had a chocolate mouse cake with chipotle chiles that was outstanding. The smokey flavor of the chiles married beautifully with the richness of the dark chocolate and the heat was far enough in the background that it was interesting without being overpowering.

I intend to experiment more with sweet and hot combinations. I think this flavor (okay, technical a flavor/sensation) combination is under-explored. Just got an ice cream maker recently and one of the things I want to try is a dark chocolate chipotle ice cream.

[pep.]

I recently made the Aztec Hot Chocolate ice cream from this adapted recipe (the original one is from The Perfect Scoop). I went looking for a metric recipe after I read about it in one of the eGullet ice cream threads. I used some home-grown dried NuMex Twilight chiles (seeds and all). Very nice!

[Lisa Shock]

When I lived in New Mexico I knew a couple of grandmothers who put green chiles into their apple pies.

[pep.]

Oh, and by accident I made candied chiles once. I used some of the dried Twilight chiles to flavor the syrup for "black nuts" (i.e. candied green walnuts). After three days or so, I noticed that the dried chiles hat reabsorbed a lot of moisture and sugar and had become translucent like candied fruit. I chopped them up and used them to decorate the Aztec Hot Chocolate ice cream. I'm thinking of doing this with strips of fresh chiles when the ripen in the near future.

[Darienne]

Oh, and by accident I made candied chiles once. I used some of the dried Twilight chiles to flavor the syrup for "black nuts" (i.e. candied green walnuts). After three days or so, I noticed that the dried chiles hat reabsorbed a lot of moisture and sugar and had become translucent like candied fruit. I chopped them up and used them to decorate the Aztec Hot Chocolate ice cream. I'm thinking of doing this with strips of fresh chiles when the ripen in the near future.

Oh my, this sounds good. Candied chiles. Of course, we are terribly limited as to what we can purchase fresh in my area of the far frozen north. The Jalapenos which we can buy are often quite mild so I could keep an eye out.

I am just about to churn another batch of my version of DL's Hot Aztec Chocolate as soon as I get off the computer. The last batch of ice cream for the Dog Weekend coming up on Thursday.

Mark Bittman has a recipe for Chocolate Tofu Puddingand I've used ground Ancho in that.

[cookingofjoy]

Did you see the pics of candied chiles on David Lebovitz's blog a while back? They were gorgeous! I'll have to see if I can find it again. I've been waiting til they finally show up at the farmers market to try this summer.

Edit: here it is! http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/04/le-bonbon-au-palais/

I love the picture of the marshmallows in this post, too.

Edited August 20, 2011 by cookingofjoy (log)

[andiesenji]

Years ago, when I was still catering, I made several batches of "red hots" - candied chile tepin or chiltepin and chile pequin (similar heat and flavor, slightly different shape), for a club of chile-heads for their parties. Most were officers and noncoms at Edwards AFB and were eventually reassigned.

The heat of the pepper is slightly tempered by the candying process but they are still very hot.

Rocoto and Manzano peppers are fairly hot (they do vary, depending on the climate - if they get more water while growing, they are less hot) but make a great addition to fruit salads - in moderation.

These peppers have an apple-like flavor and are the only peppers I know of that have black seeds.

They can be grown in pots and in temperate climates do well as a house plant in a sunny window.

And here is a link to real recipes for candied peppers.

Edited August 20, 2011 by andiesenji (log)

[Ashen]

I grew some tepin plants a few years ago.. The last of them for the season ripened just before christmas. My wife was doing all of her christmas baking and candy making and I decided to dip some in melted dark callebaut she was using at the time.. I left the stems on and they looked like miniature choc dipped cherries.

[janeer]

The luxury chocolate companies have been making chile-chocolate bars for many years. The candied chiles are new to me--must try. The first photo is gorgeous and the method sounds a lot like making maraschino cherries. Time consuming, but worth it.

[xxchef]

Hot peppers/chiles make great jams and jellies. Jalapenos and Habañeros are my two favorites to use. You do have to add pectin though as there is not enough in them to make a good gel.