What to do with dry peppers?

[danish]

Well the seasons have gone full circle. I have fresh peppers nearly ripe to pick. What do I do with all my dried old peppers from last year? I was thinking of just putting them in olive oil. Maybe grind them into powder and keep in my coat pocket to throw in an attackers face?

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Not olive oil, they are dry not fresh so nothing will happen except make oily pepper flakes, to dehydrate a pepper you need water or a liquid that is not an oil. You can grind them into powder, or crush them into flakes. You can put them in sauce (think chipotle sauce, it starts off dried ), you can cook with them, make chili, make mole, salsa, etc.

 

[danish]

Ooh, that's a thought, I have never tried chipotle sauce before. I think I will have a rummage in the cooking section for recipes. Thanks THP.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

You'll need to give those dry peppers a little smoke first... Put them on a cookie sheet and lightly smoke, should work good.

 

[danish]

That's interesting, I always imagined smoking fresh peppers to dry them but never dry peppers to add flavour. I wonder if there is anything I could pop in there with them to experiment with flavour? Searching for smoking herbs... gives you exactly what you'd expect.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

You can smoke dried peppers, you can also smoke fresh peppers, you can also smoke-dry fresh peppers which is a slow process of smoking and drying that takes days.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Here's a tip... when smoking dried pods, give them a few spritzs of water from a spray bottle as they smoke, this slightly rehydrates the surface to take on more flavor.

 

[Gorizza]

I would be making red sauce for Chili or just enchiladas if I were you.  So many different recipies for red chile sauce. I skip the roux, but some say its important. Actually just thinking about this makes me want to check these forums for red sauce recipes.

 

[SavinaRed]

Dehydrate them and keep some whole and grind some into powder. 

 

[TakashiLM]

Maybe grind them into powder and keep in my coat pocket to throw in an attackers face?

Damn this was a great idea.

 

[Geonerd]

Once you start using dried ground pepper as a spice, you'll find yourself using it dang near everywhere.  Just about anything that tastes better with black pepper will also benefit from pepper flakes.

 

[karoo]

I powder all my dried peppers . Pepper powder is the easiest and most compact way to store and save peppers.
I even make sauces from dried pepper powder . The solids and seeds are all powdered and that means no straining needed.

 

[Muckyai]

Well. I learned today that you don't want to dry your reaper pods in the house.


Shortly after these started dehydrating, the machine was evacuated into the garage.