Wikipedia suggests that the Scoville scale of these peppers ranges from 0 (unlikely!) to 70,000 (more likely). I de-skinned and de-seeded the roasted chiles without gloves and so far no problems. Not like that one time I rubbed my eyes after handling cayenne peppers. Oh the agony!
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| 2015-09 Roasted Hatch Chiles |
Roasting
Lacking a baking sheet worthy of being exposed to direct flame heat, I used a 9" x 13" glass baking dish. Wash and place all the peppers in one layer. If you have more peppers than can fit in a layer, do a second batch later. Turn your broiler on (if you have one), otherwise you can use an outdoor grill or if you have a gas stove, you can use that too.
The peppers should broil for no more than 20 minutes -- 10 minutes on each side. You want the peppers to be blackened, though it doesn't have to be evenly blackened.
The idea here is to remove the skin and give the peppers a charred or smoked flavor.
Once the peppers are done blackening, remove from the oven and place all the peppers into a sealable plastic bag or container you don't mind sacrificing to the prep of a hot pepper. Seal the bag and let cool for 30 minutes.
Remove peppers from bag and slice each pepper in half, scoop out seeds with a spoon and peel off the charred skin.
The peppers at this stage are ready for any type of recipe: salsa, stew, frying with other foods, etc., or canning (see below).
Preparing the Brine
Instead of using just boiling water, I am using the following pickling solution:
4 c white vinegar
1 c filtered water
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp organic granulated sugar
1 tbsp kosher sea salt (without the anti-caking additive)
Bring this to a boil until the ingredients dissolve. Pack jars with raw, roasted, whole or diced peppers and leave room for the pickling solution. Add pickling solution and leave at least 1/4" space at the top.
Canning Method
This canning method is the hot pack or hot processing method, where everything is mostly hot for canning in a hot water bath. Wash your glass jars and air dry them in an oven set to 170 degrees F or lower for 20 minutes. Leave jars in oven until ready to use.
Prepare the lids and bands in a clean heat-proof bowl - add lids and bands, pour boiling water on top. Let sit until ready to use. After filling the jars with the peppers, wipe the rims clean with a damp paper towel. Add the lids and screw on the jar band.
Bring a lidded stockpot filled 2/3 full with water to a boil.
Add jars and process for 10 minutes in boiling water (start the timer when the water comes back up to a boil after adding the jars). Remove from heat and set on a rack to cool for 24 hrs.
Freezer Method
Add olive oil to the pepper-filled jars before freezing, according to the Cooking Ripe blog.
Pressure Cooker Method
10 lbs of pressure for 30 minutes, according to Backwoods Home Magazine.
Additional Notes
Instead of dicing, I gave this a few pulses in the food processor. The peppers look hideous like a pile of mush, but hey.. it's just a kitchen experiment.
2-3 lbs fresh Hatch Chiles yielded four 4 oz jars. The market price for fresh Hatch chiles in my region is $1.50/lb. Not terribly cheap for experimenting with.
Local price of a case of 4 oz jars = nearly $12 with tax, roughly a dollar per jar material cost.
$4.50 fresh produce
$4.00 price of jars (at $1 per jar)
$0.50 spices, heat/electricity/filtered water
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$9.00 for four 4 oz jars, or $2.25 per processed jar
Is this all this worth it instead of buying a $0.79 4-oz can of Hatch green chiles? I wonder..
