food Candied Jalapenos & Habaneros

DaQatz

DaQatz

Been busy processing my peppers since I had to pick them all do to frost. I was candying some today and I decided to take some pics & vids and share my simple recipes for it.

First the Jalapenos.

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They are fair sized for Jalapenos.

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First thing we need is to get the sugar going. I'm using white cane sugar(Sucrose) so I really want to invert it so I'll have fructose, and glucose.
Which are simpler sugars ,sweeter tasting ,and much better are preserving our peppers.

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Here I have 3 cups white sugar, 2 cups water ,2 table spoons apple cider vinegar, and 1 teaspoon salt.
You can substitute practically any food grade acid you want for the vinegar. Lemon and or lime juice also
work great. But it can't be skipped it(Plus heat) is what catalyzes the inversion. You will what to bring the
mixture to a boil, and let it simmer about 30 minutes. If the bubbles start to become "larger" during the
30 minutes then drip some more water in., but not enough to stop the simmer.

(I used about 3 pounds of whole Jalapenos)
Ok while that's simmer you should slice your jalapenos. As you candy them they are going to shrink a lot.
So you will want to cut them fairly thick.

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Before you add your peppers to the hot sugar be sure to boil it till the bubbles start to become "larger".
Once you add the peppers the sugar will stop boiling and become very luquidy.

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Only add enough of the peppers to so that the top is out of the sugar. Like the picture above. As the sugar boils the bubbles will get large enough to
cover more of the peppers add the rest as it "raises"

This is what it should look like while it's cooking, but before it's done.

Jalapenos cooking

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You will know when it's done when the sugars "texture" changes like shown below.

They're ready

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And some close ups on the the candied peppers texture after-wards.

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Ok that's all for the jalapenos, I'm going to reply to this post with the Habaneros.
 
Ok now for the Habanero. (Also about 3 pounds of peppers)

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You will need to do the sugar the same as before.

You will want to cut the habanero differently then the jalapenos. Basically you're going to want to just stem and half them. Like below.
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You don't need to cut off the top in this case. I prefer to leave it on for this recipe because the peppers hold together better this way.

If any of the peppers have dark seeds or placenta.
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then remove the seeds & placenta. It will make the end product "ugly" if they are left in.

Same as the jalapenos bring the sugar back to boil with larger bubbles. Then add the peppers.

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Coming back to a boil

Again wait for the sugar to "cover" the peppers like in the video above, and then add the rest.

What they should look like while cooking.

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Video of it boiling

When it's done the peppers should be translucent to the point of transparency.
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Closer up.

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And that's it. I canned mine after-wards, but it's not needed just stored in the fridge they should last about 8 months. Much longer if you can them.
You can also "powder" them with confectionist sugar, or another powder of choice(Dried powder hab's?) . Though personally I like to keep them
in their own syrup.
 
Since I haven't candied peppers before, I started with the Trinidad Perfumes - very little heat, but lots of flavor. I actually don't care too much for them raw, but really liked them candied - the strong flavor of them handles the candy-ing process very well. Note I'm not canning mine like you did, DaQatz, but am following RichardK's recipe and am drying them after the saucepan process.

Second batch was a mix of fatalii and rocotillo - I didn't have a lot of either of these, so decided to cook them together. Tried a piece of fatalii before putting them in the oven to dry, but haven't tried the rocotillo yet. Candied fatalii? Good gracious - what can be said? I am fanatic about the flavor of fatalii, and no less so of candied fatalii. My tongue is on fire, my lips are on fire, and the rest of my body wants sex and more fatalii. And more fatalii. Sorry, it just does that to me..... :D
 
Nice =) I feel the same way you do about the Trinidad Perfumes, but for me it's habaneros. Also there is a "better way" to get a dry/crunchy/chewy candied pepper.

Prepare the peppers like above. If don't have much "syrup" left then make some more. bring the syrup back to a boil until it reaches 270 F at this point start adding
your peppers back in but only a few at a time. Let them cook for a minute or two, then remove them, and lay out on parchment paper or tin foil. Once cool they will be
hard candied and dry, plus they will retain that special "look" to them they get when they're candied. Also be sure you sugar temp doesn't go to high or they can get
very hard. I like to keep it below 190 F.

I also just did some green habs, here's the some pics.

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As sticky as the peppers were when laying them out on the parchment paper, I suspect that putting them in the oven to dry isn't fully necessary. I've got a bag of Aji Dulce 2 I'm also not thrilled about raw, so am thinking I'll give "the better way" a try with those. The trin perfumes are at a good consistency - crunchy yet chewy. They make me think more of grass when raw, but definitely have a strong citrus-y flavor when candied.

I have to tell you that my candy-making experience is limited, and uses no thermometer. As long as the recipe tells me what kind of consistency (and possibly color) to look for, things usually turn out fine - I've never had a batch that I would consider "ruined", at any rate. And admittedly, I don't always even follow the consistency guide in the recipe - sometimes there's something about how it looks that tells me it's time, even if I wouldn't describe the consistency the way it does in the recipe. So a better descriptor for me would be an indication of the heat level you set the burner to - med-low, med, med-hi, hi - and what to look for in the mix.

Just took a piece of rocotillo out of the oven. Since it was cooked with the fatalii, it's hotter than if I had cooked the rocos on their own, of course, but it didn't absorb too much fatalii flavor - there was definite roco flavor there.
 
Try this link it shows the "water test" for candying. The aim was for #4 if want it just "crunchy" they try for 5. The trick with the water method will be keeping an on the temp while doing all the peppers.
Also a "trick" for cooling the sugar down quickly is to have some of syrup that's fair cool on the side, and adding it when you need to bring down the temp. And what ever you do, do not add water to
the sugar once it's above waters boiling temp, to try to cool it down. You would end up with molten sugar spattered all over you, which is much worse then hot oil.
 
Thanks for the link. Yeah, a bit dripped onto one of my fingers when I was removing the last batch from the pan - ouch! Richard's recipe uses no water, so it was just molten sugar, and "molten" is definitely a good adjective for it!

The candied fatalii is deceptive - so innocent looking, all candied up like that - but zowie!
 
Yeah, once you sugar is above boiling temp there's no more water in it. A few more notes the longer you leave the sugar going the more "caramel like" it will taste. Though it will get dark fast, and if you let it over heat will get "nasty" scorched tasting very fast.
Also I would recommend trying some some in their soft stage ,like I make them. They are great on burgers ,with a dog, in chili ,etc...
 
DaQatz said:
A few more notes the longer you leave the sugar going the more "caramel like" it will taste. Though it will get dark fast, and if you let it over heat will get "nasty" scorched tasting very fast.
Click to expand...
Yep - I've never let it get to scorched yet. And only let it get caramel-like when that's my intent.
DaQatz said:
Also I would recommend trying some some in their soft stage ,like I make them. They are great ...with a dog...
Click to expand...
Never tried dog before! ;)
 
Just used your recipe to try my first attempt and candied jalepnos. Worked great so far! And I now what syrup burn feels like :)

Thanks a bunch!
 
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