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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The great habanero hot pepper salsa adventure
  • Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 07:25:53 -0600

Here's today's Gettin' the Right Eats blog entry.

Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma Food Cooperative
www.oklahomafood.org/bobsblog/


The Great Habanero Hot Pepper Salsa Adventure
We made our infamous hot pepper salsa today. The primary ingredient is
habanero peppers, we also included some red cayenne and red jalapenos. We
grew these peppers on the former west lawn of our house, 10 plants in a
square about 4' x 4' (6 habanero, 2 cayenne, 2 jalapeno). They are
interplanted with five parsnips. Right next to them are two sunflowers and
some purple hulled peas. Also in the neighborhood is rhubarb chard, fordhook
giant chard, more sunflowers, more purple hulled peas, and a giant pumpkin
plant. And tomatoes on a trellis, and blue morning glory on one end of the
trellis. That pumpkin is taking over. It's grown up two sunflower plants, and
one of them has 3 small pumpkins hanging off it! That same sunflower also has
purple hulled peas growing up it, kind of a variation on the traditional
Three Sisters. There's one nice sized pumpkin already turning yellow, and
we're still getting lots of blooms. This was a volunteer. I had left that bed
fallow and was going to plant turnips on it, but this plant popped up in the
middle and I thought, "Who am I to refuse a gift?" so I left it.

A lady stopped by yesterday morning, she's Hispanic, and lives just a block
up the street. She asked if I had rhubarb growing, pointing to the rhubarb
chard. I said no, and explained what it was and how to cook it. I picked some
of it and the fordhook and gave it to her, plus some habaneros. She asked
about the rue (rueda in Spanish), and asked if she could get some if she
needed it, I of course said yes. We really don't use it, but it is a very
pretty plant and it is very popular with all of the Latin Americans in the
neighborhood. They make a tea of the leaves and use it for treating anxiety
(this much I have patched together from my very basic Spanish and their very
basic English). We do "name this plant", often. I point to something, and
identify it in English, and then they tell me what it is in Spanish. (My
neighbors across the street are from Guatemala.)

Anyway, back to the habanero pepper salsa.

First we did the "mise en place". Huh? At a recent visit to my favorite used
book store (NW 30th and Penn), I picked up two textbooks used by culinary
schools, one of them was published by the Culinary Institute of America. So I
have been doing some reading and learning the traditional French terminology.
One of the really useful readings, right up front, was about "mise en place".
This means "getting everything you need for the recipe together before you
start, all the pots, pans, utensils, implements, ingredients, information,
etc." . I knew this "in theory", but in practice I would get a few of the
major items together, but then I would wander around as I cooked getting
things as I needed them.

It really is better if you do all that at first. Not getting everything
together right at the beginning will simply make your work take longer and be
more complicated than is necessary. If every few minutes you have to shift
mentally from "cooking mode" to "finding mode", and then back again to
cooking mode, well, not only does this take time but you also may make a
mistake. "Did I add salt or not?" Well, if you have measured out the salt you
would need for the recipe BEFORE you started, you could just look and see if
the salt was still there. If yes, then you need to add it; if no, then you
already added the salt. Ditto for any other ingredient in the recipe.

So when we started on the peppers, everything we needed for the entire
adventure was right there in front of us ready to be used. Here's what this
food adventure required:

Cutting board

knife

food processor

4 cup measuring cup

food service gloves

bowl for cut peppers

grannyware canning kettle full of boiling water

rack for canner

canning jars, lids, and rings in hot water (we used both half pint and 3/4
pint jars)

canning funnel

jar lifter

salt

shallots

garlic

habanero, red jalapeno, and cayenne peppers

Towels, rags, and hot pads

pot

spoons

vinegar

Sink of hot soapy dishwater

With everything in place, we were good to go.

So we washed the peppers and let them drain (two of us did this work). We cut
the stems off the peppers and then cut them in half. The cayennes which were
very long we chopped into pieces. And yes, we wore gloves when we sliced and
chopped the peppers, and we strongly urge anyone else slicing habaneros to do
the same. The first time we did this, 3 years ago, I didn't wear gloves. Big
mistake. My fingers got really red and irritated, but that wasn't the worst
thing that happened. I thoroughly washed my hands afterwards, several times,
and dried them using clean towels. Later that night, I washed my hands again
and took my contact lenses out, cleaned them, and put them away for the
night. The next morning, I popped in a contact lense and immediately popped
it out because it started "burning" and plunged my face into water blinking
my eye to irrigate it and get rid of the irritation. I had to wash my hands
three more times, and go through the cleaning ritual 3 times with the
contact, before I could put it back in my eye.

Even if you don't wear contacts, you are liable to forget and rub your eye
and that is also a big mistake. So wear gloves when you slice habanero
peppers -- there are physical laws that govern such things in the kitchens
and we ignore them to our dire peril.. <end cautionary mode>

We have a small food processor so we processed the peppers in batches, adding
the puree to the measuring cup until it was full, then pouring the puree into
the pot it would be heated in. We ended up with 9-1/2 cups of hot pepper
puree, and it is a nice reddish-orange color. We then did a handful of garlic
cloves and several shallots in the processor, mixed that with the pepper
puree, and we had ten cups. I added 4 cups of cider vinegar, 2 teaspoons of
salt, and mixed everything together in the pot on the stove and brought it to
a rolling boil. Meanwhile the knives, processor blade/bowl/cover, and cutting
board went into the hot soapy water.

The procedure then was: take one jar out of the hot water (using the jar
lifter), drain the water, set it on the counter and put the canning funnel on
it. Stir salsa, dip some out with the measuring cup, pour into the funnel
into the jar, leaving 1/8" headroom. (That is, filling it to within 1/8th
inch of the rim.) I used a soft clean rag to carefully wipe the rim of the
jar, making sure it was dry. Fish a lid out of the hot water (not so hot I
didn't mind putting my fingers in, never boil lids in advance) and carefully
place it on the jar. I then put on an oven mitt - and used that oven-mitted
hand to hold the jar while with the other hand I took a jar ring, put it on
the jar and tightened it. When this was completed for all the jars, I ended
up with 5, 3/4 pint jars and 3 half pints. I stacked them in the rack and
lowered it into the boiling water canner, brought it back to a rolling boil,
and processed the jars for 15 minutes by the clock.

They are now sitting on the counter, cooling. I will later today check each
jar to make sure it seals properly (there should be a slight depression in
the middle of the lid). If any do not seal, they will go in the refrigerator
and will be used first. I will let them sit about a month before opening the
first jar.

This is a very powerful salsa. About 1 tablespoon of it in a crock pot of
rice pilaf will wake up that bland rice, that's for sure, by most people's
standards. Since we like things on the hotter side of fire, we would add
twice that to a crock pot of rice. We add maybe 1/8th teaspoon to deviled egg
mixture (for a dozen eggs), those are truly devil fire eggs. We tuck it in
here and there as we cook. A little dab of this will surely do you right.

We're also drying apples. A friend gave us some apples and we are slicing
them, soaking them in water with Fruit Fresh, and then into the dehydrator.
We're keeping that going pretty much around the clock. We like dried apples a
lot. I will probably also freeze some.

Earlier today Kim Barker, Shauna Struby, and yours truly of the Oklahoma Food
Cooperative spoke to the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Graving Lands
Conservation Association. Kim and I spoke at their meeting last year, when
the food cooperative was just a crazy gleam in our eyes. Today we were able
to give a report about how it is working in practice, and tell them that
since last we spoke, we had sold $72,000 worth of Oklahoma farm products via
our order delivery system. Each of us gave a different perspective on our
work, and both Kim and Shauna were great in their remarks.

I saw several people we know, Chad Goss of the Oklahoma Dept of Agriculture
Organic Certification program was there, Kathy Moore (member of the
cooperative, she's running for state senate from up that way), and others
that I had met last year at the meeting. Joel Salatin was also there; he is a
third generation organic livestock farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia, and practices "relationship marketing" - direct sales based on
personal relationships he builds with his customers. What we are doing is
right in line with his ideas. We're not just selling food - we're selling
food that has a story to go with it. Here's an online profile of him
http://wsare.usu.edu/sare2000/118.htm . I bought one of his books (on how to
start a successful farming operation). He said he has a new book coming out
soon, this time oriented towards the customer, that explains why local food
"with a story" is important form the customer's viewpoint.

The group seemed very interested in what we had to say, I left with several
business cards and met one guy from Harrah who has beef, he is coming to our
next delivery day (August 19th) to see how it all works.

Http://www.oklahomafood.org/bobsblog/






  • [Livingontheland] The great habanero hot pepper salsa adventure, Tradingpost, 08/15/2004

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