Made Some Smoked Pepper Dust - Now What?


 
John Sp

John Sp

TVWBB All-Star
Hello All,

Last weekend I smoked a couple of chickens and decided to throw some of our bumper crop of peppers on after I pulled the birds. Kari ate some of these with our dinner (I am not a fan) and I decided to throw the leftovers into the Excalibur dehydrator in an attempt to make some pepper dust. Here are a few pics of the process.


Peppers (Jalapeno, Chili, Anaheim, and Cajun Belle) Sprinkled with Montreal Steak After about 1/2 Hour on the Top Rack of the WhoDat Mini over Hickory Around 235


After Dehydrating for about 24 hours at 135


Stemmed Them and Tossed Them into the FP


After processing for About Three Minutes​

Well this stuff is a little scary for me. I am not a huge spicy food fan and not big on peppers either so having made it, I am not sure what I will do with it. Why did I make it, you ask? Well for two reasons. My wife and most of my kids love peppers and all things spicy so I figured I would try to make something they could use as a dust at the table. Also peppers are about the only thing I can reliably grow in my garden (go figure). Every year we grow way more than even my large family can eat. This leads to lots of waste so... if I can figure out how to convert peppers into something shelf stable, that will reduce my guilt about the waste (see it is all about me after all). I am hoping to find time to smoke a pork butt this weekend. If I do I will mix some of this with my standard butt rub. Here is where all you gurus come in - what else would you do with this stuff? Please advise...

Regards,

John
 
Looks GREAT John! I've done this many times with bumper crops of peppers from our garden...
just airtight jar the rascals... they'll last forever.
 
if you ask around you will find people who loooove stuff like that. I make habanero death dust every year and I give a lot of it away to my chili head pals.....and as far as your own use goes....if you apply it judiciously , it adds a nice layer of flavor to soups , beans , chili....you name it.
 
I'm like you John not a big fan of heat in my food. The only thing I did was grow jalapenos last year for ABTs and one plant went nuts so I was giving japs away to anyone who wanted any. Had so many ABTs got sick of em. No jalapenos this year.
 
Just use it in place of cayenne or crushed red pepper in any recipe it will work great. And make some red chili con carne with it too.

Nice work, it's important to process even your bumper crops like this to get true rewards from your gardening.
 
Frank H said:
if you ask around you will find people who loooove stuff like that. I make habanero death dust every year and I give a lot of it away to my chili head pals.....and as far as your own use goes....if you apply it judiciously , it adds a nice layer of flavor to soups , beans , chili....you name it.
Click to expand...

And it's a mighty fine product if I do say so myself :)
 
UPDATE:

Well Kari made some beefy mac for dinner tonight and sprinkled some of the pepper dust on it at the table. She said it was really good. It tasted smoky and spicy and just like the roasted peppers she had with the chicken dinner the other night. She said it was not too too spicy and even added a bit more (she likes things pretty spicy but not stupid spicy). Based upon this review I suspect we will be making this again. I am set to try it on a pork butt tomorrow if the weather cooperates or Sunday if not...

Regards,

John
 
Glad the spice worked out for you. The pics made that batch look a little scary to me, but now I'm curious as to how hot it was. I like spicy, but not crazy spicy.
 
Good stuff, John. Always cool to see homemade spices. If it were me, I'd sprinkle it on some chicken legs, grill roast them over high heat for crispy skin, then brace myself for an onslaught of mouth-searing heat.
 
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