Yooper

Recipes 

Someone just gifted me with two pint jars of home grown and home dried hot peppers. I'm no expert, but I can tell there are different varieties. Some I recognize (cayenne, habanero), some I do not.

Here's my question! "Now what?"

I know I can grind them into homemade chili powder, but I'm hoping that someone can give me some great ideas on how to use them in everyday cooking. I assume that they are all hot varieties, as that's why I got them. They were "too hot" for his parents, so they gave them to me!

They are in pint jars with some rice on the bottom. They are very very dry, leathery in texture.

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MrNatural

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Curious about this also. Spent too much time fishing last year (if there is such a thing) and all my jalapeno and serrano turned red before I could pick 'em and eat 'em or gift 'em.
Ended up dehydrating and storing them in evacuated mason jars. Also leathery here.

So far have made pepper flakes, rehydrate and used in home fries, used whole when cooking carnitas, simmered in spaghetti sauce and rehydrated and blended in bloody mary mix.

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wolfstar

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I would smoke some of them...

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aiptasia

Recipes 

You could make some awesome sauces with them. Most mole sauces are made from dried, reconstituted peppers. Thai stir fry and seafood dishes can also appreciate a little heat. A nice little fine grind to them and you could dust some truly sinister deviled eggs this year.

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TNGabe

Recipes 

I tend to just throw dried peppers in dishes whole and skip the PITA of grinding them. Good idea to take them out before serving or warn people, obviously. An unexpected habanero makes a bay leaf in the mouth seem like the time of your life. Black beans are one of my favorite things to throw peppers in. Yummy, cheap, easy, & healthy is hard to beat.

Another way to use the peppers is to soak them in something - oil, vinegar, & vodka all come to mind.

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Glynn

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Chili oil. my bro gives me dried chilies every year. all i do is crush up a lot of chilies in to some cooking oil and slowly raise the heat and then let them steep in the hot oil. the trick is to get the oil hot enough with out over toasting them.

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Yooper

Recipes 

I just ground one up, so that the texture is more like tough pepper flakes, to use in my marinade and avocado salsa.

I put olive oil, lime zest, lime juice, white wine vinegar, garlic, and the pepper together and then set aside about four teaspoons of that. I used the bulk of it for marinading a grass-fed beef boneless sirloin. I took the rest of the marinade, and added more garlic, some green onion, and cumin, and added two mashed avocados and cilantro.

So tonight, it's marinated grilled steak with avocado salsa.

Bob gave up his old coffee grinder and told me I can use it to grind up the rest of the peppers if I want. I'm thinking I probably will go that route, and use it as a mix of "unknown" hot pepper flakes.

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+HopSpunge+

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You could put a couple in a bottle of olive oil with a sprig of rosmary and what not. Looks cool and tastes good too.

boscobeans

Recipes 

If he grows "HOT" peppers there could be a few really killer varieties in there like Scotch Bonnet or Bhut Jalopa (Ghost Pepper).

I would go real easy on the amounts at first, as from experience one Ghost Pepper in a gallon of chili made it intolerable for almost anyone who tried it.

bosco

gratus fermentatio

Recipes 

You could split 1 or a couple of those dried peppers & put them in a belissima bottle with vinegar, spicy vinegar is a nice thing to cook with. You might also put some whole cranberries in the vinegar with the peppers; they add quite a bit of fruitiness & a bit of tartness to the sweet/sour/hot. BTW, it makes for a fantastic vinegrette dressing. Only takes a few weeks to get good & a couple months to get REALLY GOOD. If you use some nice bottles, it makes a nice gift too.
Regards, GF.