Dear jalapeno pepper, what has happened to your spice? There was a time when you were the pepper of choice for the adventurous in all of us; the mere thought of a bite on a ring of your fire would send us crashing through the refrigerator for a glass of milk to quench your rage.
You were the star of so many great Mexican and Tex Mex dishes too; tacos, chili, burgers, salads, salsa, chips, for the more conventional, to ice cream for the more unconventional of us. It was all enough to get us reaching from our Tums to be sure! But sadly, you seem to have lost your touch, your ability to terrify. More often than not a bite out of you these days hardly has enough sting to remind us that you are a jalapeno and not the ubiquitous green pepper.
So who do we turn to now in order to satisfy our cravings for heat? Serrano peppers are the easy choice, but they don’t seem to quite have your flavor, despite packing a little more wallop. Of course you have cousins in Hatch peppers, Anchos and the like too. There are all kinds of Asian peppers too that can easily surpass the heat index requirement, if not the taste. And the same can be said for the Scotch Bonnet pepper; but again it’s heat without your flavor.
So what shall we do? I suppose the best bet, until you come to your senses and start showing your true nature, is to mix you with Serranos, to get their punch and your distinct flavor. Is that a deal?
*** UPDATE ***
My wife heard my complaints about these suddenly mild peppers and found a big bag of them at Costco for about $1.99. They were labeled "Hot" and indeed they were! What a pleasant surprise! So then came the big question; what the hell am I going to do with all these peppers?
We answered part of that question by making a very good Jalapeno-Cheddar bread right away. That turned out to be very good. So then I had the notion to find a pickling recipe. I turned to a trusted site, www.allrecipes.com, for guidance and came up with a great, quick and tasty way to pickle peppers. Search "pickled jalapeno peppers" on that site and several good ones will come up for you.
I used them recently on a prepared sub roll of sliced meatloaf, Havarti cheese, some "Mutha" barbecue sauce (you can find that in this blog), and a layer of the jalapeno relish. It's slightly sweet, tangy and spicy, and a great way to put a whole new spin on a familiar pepper.
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