Sunday, June 27, 2010

Southwest chipotle bell peppers


So I decided to try my hand at a stuffed bell pepper. I had 5 of them laying around, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't get used in time if I were using them normally. Plus, I always really like stuffed bell peppers. Even as a kid. Of course, when I ate them as a kid, they were probably stuffed with hamburger. And I likely didn't touch the pepper part. I just probably dug the hamburger out of it.

I thought maybe making some sort of a southwestern style bell would be good. So here is what you need:

3 chipotle peppers. Probably a good idea to cut the seeds out.
1 onion (minced)
4 garlic cloves (minced)
1 4 oz can of green chilis, diced
1 mango (diced into little cubes)
1 can of corn
1 can of black beans
2 roma tomatoes
1/2 cup cilantro
2 1/2 tsp chili power
2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp adobada (from the can of chipotle peppers) sauce
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 lime
1 tbsp olive oil
Some form of grated cheese (I used romano, because it's what I had)
Thom Yorke, Album: The Eraser

I browned the onions, green chilis, and the garlic with the olive oil for a few minutes. Until they were brown. Obviously. Then, I threw in the chili powder, and the cumin and mixed them up well with the onions. Once well mixed, add the beans and corn. Once that is mixed, add the adobada sauce and the diced chipotle peppers, and the oregano. Once that mixture was pretty hot, I added the cilantro, tomatoes, and the diced mango, and squeezed in half a lime. I let that all simmer for about 4 or 5 minutes.

Previous to this, digging all the seeds and white junk out of your bell peppers is a good idea. With the remaining lime wedges, I squeezed lime juice in each of the 5 bell peppers, and then packed them full of the concoction. Now, if you wanted to make this more flavorful, and more fatty, adding an assload of cheese to the mixture right before you spoon it in the peppers would be a good idea. Or, you could layer it, which might be even better. A spoon full of mixture, a layer of cheese, again and again till the pepper is full. I just put some romano on top, because that is all I had. Then, I put the peppers in the oven and broiled them on low for about 15 minutes.

They ended up being about a 4 on the spicy scale (from 1-10, 10 being on fire) but this could probably be reduced with less chili powder, and maybe add more cumin instead. If you love cilantro, there could have probably been more of that too. Weirdly, the leftovers were actually more tasty than when they first came out of the oven.

Anyway, I feel like there is a lot here that could be modified. Maybe instead of so much corn and beans, you could do a seasoned rice, which would add more flavor. I think I'd have probably added more chipotle peppers as well. But the can I bought only had 3 in it. A very crapy can.

1 comment:

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