Ode to the humble wax pepper
Jul. 28th, 2015 17:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillIt would seem that Hungarian wax peppers are a good stand-in for New Mexico or Anaheim peppers in cooked-chile dishes. We have a recipe that called for canned mild green chiles, so I pulled in an armload of wax peppers (twice as much as we needed, and the plants aren't bare), took off the stems and seeds, and steamed them in the microwave. They have a little bite, about as much as a jalapeno, but without the bitterness that Anaheims and New Mexicos are prone to. I think that they'll be just fine once diced.
I originally grew these guys for throwing into omelets at the last minute (crunchy!) but if they serve as a fresh substitute for canned chiles, I may end up using them for a lot more stuff. They have a good size and shape for cooking or frying, and thin walls with good flavor.
(Hungarian wax peppers, by the way, are the hotter cousin of the almost-identical banana pepper, but even wax peppers don't run as hot as serranos. Quite manageable.)
I originally grew these guys for throwing into omelets at the last minute (crunchy!) but if they serve as a fresh substitute for canned chiles, I may end up using them for a lot more stuff. They have a good size and shape for cooking or frying, and thin walls with good flavor.
(Hungarian wax peppers, by the way, are the hotter cousin of the almost-identical banana pepper, but even wax peppers don't run as hot as serranos. Quite manageable.)
