I love peppers, fresh, dried, ground, whatever. When I was a child my parents would announce that we were going to a mexican restaurant and apparently we would whine, "not spicy food again!"
I soon learned the errors of our ways.
My parents have a saying that is often repeated, by me as well, that every so often you need to eat something spicy or your fire will go out.
For me, there are two desirable qualities of the chile: heat and flavor. Let me explain. There are many chiles that have a lovely flavor that have some heat, but are easy on the palate. There are also those that will " burn you twice", that can give a great flavor but if handled in a clumsy way, will just burn you to the point that the actual taste of the chile will be lost in the heat.
Habaneros come to mind for the latter. I'll talk about those another time.
Today I'm roasting peppers to bring out some wonderful flavors and a little heat as well.
The two ways I do this is on the grill and broiled in the oven. Different methods for different peppers.
Today I'll be working with some commonly available peppers: Anaheim, Poblano (if you are in California they are likely to be labeled as Pasillas) and red Jalepenos. Oddly enough, when I bought the red Jalepenos they were called " long red peppers". I've never seen that before. I'll rant about weird produce labeling another time.
The flavor of each of these chiles will change dramatically with roasting and in my opinion, they should not all be roasted in same way.
How to decide which is right for each pepper?
The thinner the meat of the pepper, the more control you need.
Anaheim peppers have a reasonably thick wall and can be done easily either way, poblanos are very thin and I have found that I get better results (especially when making chile rellenos that the oven is best), Jalepenos can go either way, oven or grill. As the Jalepeno matures, the outer wall gets thinner and the oven is the better net in my experience. However today I have decided that the grilled flavor is what I’m after, so i’ll just have to be attentive.
First rub the peppers with oil. I use my 25% Extra Virgin Olive Oil/75% Canola blend that I make for this.
For the oven place the peppers on a sheet pan under the broiler and monitor them.
As the skin of the chiles starts to blister, rotate them so that the skin is blistering on all sides.
For the peppers on the grill, you need a good bed of coals that has a medium heat. The coals need to burn down a bit so that the chiles do not burn. Once you are getting a more moderate heat and the coals are completely covered with w white ashy coating they should be ready.
On the grill, a little more attention is needed as you can burn the peppers if they are not closely watched.
What you are looking for is a blistering of the skin and some blackening of it as well. This adds a wonderful smokey flavor that is not available from the oven, hence the two methods.
Once the peppers have been sufficiently roasted, place them in a stainless steel or glass bowl while they are still very hot
and cover tightly with plastic wrap.
Let the peppers cool enough to touch, peel the tough outer skin from them.
At this point you can slice them down one side and remove the seeds.
They are ready for salads, sauces, etc.
Yum and Yum!
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