I had posted a version of this recipe on gcdmd post on Hot Pepper Jelly. In this post, I used fresh Ghost Peppers.
My wife and I are visiting our kids on the West Coast in a month and I was asking them if they wanted me to bring anything along. Besides money (only kidding) my daughter in law said, "oh, we are out of your Ghost Salt and worse, the Ghost Pepper Jelly!!!". So, being the good father in law I made up another small batch.
This time, all I had were some dried peppers... So, did some research on re-hydrating peppers and thought I would give it a shot.
The results were great. Just as sweet and peppery and spicy hot but not so hot your are grabbing for a glass of cold milk!
Thought I would share this version - Rev 2
Ghost Pepper Jelly Rev 2 - Using Dried Peppers
4 Dried Ghost Peppers
3 Bell Peppers - I used 2 orange and 1 red to try to keep the color close to what Ghost Peppers color is
2 cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
3 oz liquid pectin
Re-hydrate the peppers by first getting a dry skillet hot, over medium-high heat. Put the dried Ghost Peppers in the skiillet for 30-40 seconds, moving them around and pressing down a bit. This helps bring out some of the oils. Don't brown them (at least too much) you just want to start to soften them - which they do some!
Put the dried and fried peppers in a glass bowl and cover them in hot water. Not quite boiling, but starting to steam water.
Let them sit about an hour. They do indeed get soft - but wont be confused with fresh ones. They are pretty pliable and soft. At this point, I took most of the seeds out - but left all the pulp and skin. Oh yes, wear gloves at this point!!!!
Then proceed as the original recipe (which used 3 fresh Ghosts)...
Take 1 cup of the vinegar and all the peppers and puree in a blender
Pour the puree into a large saucepan (I mean large, this stuff boils up fast and high)
Add the other 1 cup of vinegar and sugar
Bring to a rolling boil for 10 mins. stirring all the time
Stir in the pectin and do the rolling boil for 1 minute
Ladle into jelly jars leaving ~ 1/4" space. Put on caps and process in a boiling water bath for 10 min.
I had a few 1/2 pint jars left from the original batch (fresh) and did a side by side taste test. Very close - both are sweet with a beautiful pepper flavor then the hot/spicy sets in. Fantastic with cheese, on toast with a little butter, crackers with cream cheese... ah.
In a few weeks I am going to do a batch of ribs. Mostly MMD but on 1 rack I am going to put a little MMD and glaze with this jelly during the last hour of the smoke. Looking for that BBQ/Sweet/Hot/Pork flavor ;-)
Note:
1) Wear gloves...
2) I did the blender and boil in my garage. I have a short propane burner I use for beermaking. The fumes are pretty strong coming from the blender, mellowed out a bit during the boil
3) In the original recipe, I used 3 fairly large fresh Ghost Peppers. In this version, I used 4. Most of my research said that dried lose some percentage of heat.
4) If you pour the puree into a pot and it comes up 1/2 way.... get a bigger pot!!! When the rolling boil takes off it seems to multiply 3X-4X it's volume!!!!
5) Since the skins were very thin and darker from the drying, I noticed lots of little "flakes" in the finished jelly. Still tasted great and didn't have any different mouth feel. Actually made an interesting looking jelly! Here are picture of Rev 1 (left)
and Rev 2
My wife and I are visiting our kids on the West Coast in a month and I was asking them if they wanted me to bring anything along. Besides money (only kidding) my daughter in law said, "oh, we are out of your Ghost Salt and worse, the Ghost Pepper Jelly!!!". So, being the good father in law I made up another small batch.
This time, all I had were some dried peppers... So, did some research on re-hydrating peppers and thought I would give it a shot.
The results were great. Just as sweet and peppery and spicy hot but not so hot your are grabbing for a glass of cold milk!
Thought I would share this version - Rev 2
Ghost Pepper Jelly Rev 2 - Using Dried Peppers
4 Dried Ghost Peppers
3 Bell Peppers - I used 2 orange and 1 red to try to keep the color close to what Ghost Peppers color is
2 cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
3 oz liquid pectin
Re-hydrate the peppers by first getting a dry skillet hot, over medium-high heat. Put the dried Ghost Peppers in the skiillet for 30-40 seconds, moving them around and pressing down a bit. This helps bring out some of the oils. Don't brown them (at least too much) you just want to start to soften them - which they do some!
Put the dried and fried peppers in a glass bowl and cover them in hot water. Not quite boiling, but starting to steam water.
Let them sit about an hour. They do indeed get soft - but wont be confused with fresh ones. They are pretty pliable and soft. At this point, I took most of the seeds out - but left all the pulp and skin. Oh yes, wear gloves at this point!!!!
Then proceed as the original recipe (which used 3 fresh Ghosts)...
Take 1 cup of the vinegar and all the peppers and puree in a blender
Pour the puree into a large saucepan (I mean large, this stuff boils up fast and high)
Add the other 1 cup of vinegar and sugar
Bring to a rolling boil for 10 mins. stirring all the time
Stir in the pectin and do the rolling boil for 1 minute
Ladle into jelly jars leaving ~ 1/4" space. Put on caps and process in a boiling water bath for 10 min.
I had a few 1/2 pint jars left from the original batch (fresh) and did a side by side taste test. Very close - both are sweet with a beautiful pepper flavor then the hot/spicy sets in. Fantastic with cheese, on toast with a little butter, crackers with cream cheese... ah.
In a few weeks I am going to do a batch of ribs. Mostly MMD but on 1 rack I am going to put a little MMD and glaze with this jelly during the last hour of the smoke. Looking for that BBQ/Sweet/Hot/Pork flavor ;-)
Note:
1) Wear gloves...
2) I did the blender and boil in my garage. I have a short propane burner I use for beermaking. The fumes are pretty strong coming from the blender, mellowed out a bit during the boil
3) In the original recipe, I used 3 fairly large fresh Ghost Peppers. In this version, I used 4. Most of my research said that dried lose some percentage of heat.
4) If you pour the puree into a pot and it comes up 1/2 way.... get a bigger pot!!! When the rolling boil takes off it seems to multiply 3X-4X it's volume!!!!
5) Since the skins were very thin and darker from the drying, I noticed lots of little "flakes" in the finished jelly. Still tasted great and didn't have any different mouth feel. Actually made an interesting looking jelly! Here are picture of Rev 1 (left)
!!!
Comment