On Wednesday morning I picked 31 jalapeños off two plants in our raised bed, and there are at least that many still hanging out there. Two plants, $3.98 each at Lowe's in April. Nobody in this house can eat 31 jalapeños a week, not even Matt, so they get pickled.
This is a refrigerator pickle, not canning. It takes about 20 minutes from cutting board to jar, they're good to eat the same night, and they keep in the fridge for weeks.
The plants went into the raised bed in mid-April, between the tomatoes and the basil, and did nothing interesting until the heat showed up. Now they're about two feet tall and loaded. I pick the peppers when they're firm, glossy and about three inches long. A few get left on to turn red, which makes them a little sweeter, and some grow thin tan lines on the skin that look like stretch marks. Those are fine to eat and usually run a bit hotter.
Gloves first
My second week on the line in Denton, I seeded a case of jalapeños bare-handed and then rubbed my eye. I've worn gloves for this job ever since, and a box of disposable gloves lives under our sink mostly for pepper days. Rosie is on the learning tower for almost everything I make, but not this. She sits in her high chair with a cup of shredded cheese and supervises from across the kitchen.
Quick-pickled jalapeños (makes about 1 quart)
- 25 to 30 jalapeños, sliced into 1/4-inch rings (about 3 cups)
- 1 small carrot, sliced into thin coins
- 1/4 onion, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano and 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
Pack the sliced jalapeños, carrot, onion and garlic into a clean quart jar. In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, oregano and peppercorns to a boil and stir until the sugar and salt dissolve. Pour the hot brine over the peppers until they're covered, press them down with a spoon, and let the jar sit on the counter with the lid off for about 15 minutes. They'll go from bright green to olive in that time, which is normal. Once the jar has cooled, put the lid on and refrigerate it.
They're edible at 20 minutes and better the next day. We go through a jar in about two weeks, so I rarely have to think about how long they last, but I don't keep a jar past a month.
About food safety: these are refrigerator pickles. They aren't processed in a canner and they aren't shelf-stable, so they live in the fridge the whole time. If I ever wanted jars for the pantry, I'd follow tested canning instructions from the USDA or the National Center for Home Food Preservation rather than improvising.
What I got wrong the first time
Last summer I sliced them thin, about an eighth of an inch, and they went limp in two days. A quarter inch holds its crunch. I also used twice the sugar, and they tasted like candy with a grudge. One tablespoon is plenty.
The carrot coins are borrowed from the escabeche bucket at the restaurant, which always had carrots and onions floating in it with the peppers. The cooks used to fish out the carrots for themselves, and honestly the carrots are still my favorite part. If anybody in the family doesn't like heat, those pickled carrots are the way in.
How we use them up
- On Matt's burgers and on anything that comes off the grill on Saturday.
- Chopped into nachos and tacos. Wyatt puts them on everything since he saw his cousin Cody do it, and pretends they aren't hot.
- A splash of the brine in potato salad, deviled eggs or a jar of ranch.
- Chopped into cornbread batter, though cornbread-and-chili weather is a long way off.
- On fajitas, the adults' half.
Eli won't touch them, and I've accepted it.
The cost, counted the way I count everything: the brine, garlic, onion and carrot come to about 80 cents a quart. The peppers are close to free once the plants are paid for, and at this rate those two plants will have earned back their $7.96 by the Fourth of July.
Mrs. Patterson next door saw me on the patio with a colander and asked for a jar, "mild." Hers got extra carrots, half the jalapeños with the seeds scraped out, and a strip of blue painter's tape on the lid that says HOT ANYWAY.
