1 lb Sausage cut 1/4 in. thick 3 tb Salt
2 boneless chicken breasts
1/2 ts Cayenne pepper
1 medium onion
3 Bay leaves
1/2 Bell pepper
3 oz Tomato paste
2 Cloves garlic
1/2 lb Peeled shrimp
2-1/2 c Water
1-1/2 c Raw rice
– Saute sausage, chicken, onions, bell pepper and garlic until sausage and chicken are browned.
– Add the water, salt, cayenne, bay leaf and tomato paste.
– Bring to a boil with the lid on.
– When water boils add the shrimp and the raw rice.
– Stir and lower heat.
– Let rice simmer, stirring every five minutes until rice is cooked.
These thick crinkle-cut hot garlic dill pickles turned out great. These are fresh from the field to the jar. Changes in the recipe explained briefly below also worked out great!
Osage Farms in Dillard, Georgia is a real find. When I first realized that the cucumbers they offered were authentically fresh from the field and that they had been picked within the hour, I knew I would have a top quality product to use for my hot garlic dill pickles. Also offered along with the cucumbers were potatoes, various peppers (hot and mild), beets, peaches, cabbage, tomatoes (very wide variety), various squashes, tender ears of corn, okra, and soon apples. All of their produce is top quality and fresh.
Recipe Changes
Since this last batch of pickles, prepared this past Saturday, was a fairly small batch of 12 quarts, I ventured out in my recipe. This time around, I added a more generous portion of powdered cayenne along with a multi-fistful of dried hot chili peppers into the brine mix. In the jars, to leave more room for pickles, I backed off on the amount of added flaked cayenne and dill. I did add fresh dill weed sprigs to the jars along with fresh hot chili pepper rings, and whole dried cayenne peppers to the jars before I added the thick sliced, crinkle cut cucumber slices and covered them with the spicy brine. The pickles are not room temperature cured yet, so I have not tried them. I hope they will be very good.
UPDATE: They are tastier and spicier than ever and the thicker slices make then crunchier.
The Osage Produce Stand is a wonder of fresh goodness in North Georgia close to the North Caroline state line on HWY 441.
The equivalency table I created for making various sized batch of pickles is a big help:
It’s no secret that the level of hot pepper usage in North American cuisine has risen dramatically. Hot chilies have been around for centuries in South American and other tropical areas. However, there is more to the picture than meets the eye. Hot Peppers have noticeable health benefits along with their lively taste. The spicy element of hot peppers is due to a chemical in them called capsaicin.
Capsaicin is located in the placental area of peppers (the fleshy, pithy part that holds the seeds). The internal membranes contain some to a lesser degree. The seeds themselves do not produce any capsaicin. Most of it is in the pithy white portion of the interior of the pepper. Capsaicin does not actually “burn” tissues. It creates the same mental sensation via the nervous system as an actual burn, but no actual damage is done. The inflammation caused by exposure to capsaicin is believed to be the body’s reaction to nerve stimulation. This seems to be a natural reaction that is produced by the brain because the sensory excitement is translated by the brain as a physical burn or abrasion.
The Increased Demand for Spicier Foods in America
The Asian hot sauce Sriracha has recently taken on an more prominent role as America’s favorite hot condiment. Recently, Sriracha sales have grown noticeably every year without any major advertising by their distributor, Huy Fong Foods. Dining establishments have begun featuring Sriracha in many of their dishes, Lay’s, the potato chip manufacturer, have it as one of their top three new chip flavors. Subway has started offering Sriracha chicken and steak melts on their menu. Sriracha is just one component in the spicy foods movement that has gained popularity in the U.S. Chipotle, tobasco, habanero, and jalapeno are on the list of foods that have recently become more prominent in snack foods, as well as on restaurant menus. Doritos brand has 102 different varieties of corn chips. Out the 102 flavors, the majority of these have spicier flavors added. These include Doritos Fiery Habanero, and Chile Limon.
Restaurants and food trucks that feature Mexican or Asian foods now comprise a large number of newly opened restaurants. One thing in common with these cuisines is their tendency of cooking spicy dishes, which is now satisfying America’s growing desire for those hot dishes. Over half of consumers mentioned that spicy or hot foods are appealing, compared to less than half a short 4 years ago.
Health Benefits of Hot Peppers
Cayenne peppers, better known as the red hot chili pepper, are full of the antioxidant vitamins A and C.
Hot, spicy peppers can also work as a pain reliever for some people. The pain receptors within your mouth can get desensitized, nerve receptors in the body can also be desensitized. This is the theory behind using capsaicin and pepper extracts as pain relievers. When applied to the skin, topical capsaicin has been shown to ease symptoms of headaches, shingles, and osteoarthritis. Capsaicin is being studied as an effective treatment for sensory nerve fiber disorders, including pain associated with arthritis, psoriasis, and diabetic neuropathy. When animals injected with a substance that causes inflammatory arthritis were fed a diet that contained capsaicin, they had delayed onset of arthritis, and also significantly reduced extremity inflammation. Red chili peppers, such as cayenne, have been shown to reduce blood cholesterol, triglyceride levels, and platelet aggregation, while increasing the body’s ability to dissolve fibrin, a substance integral to the formation of blood clots. Cultures where hot pepper is used liberally have a much lower rate of heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism.
Spicing your meals with chili peppers may also protect the fats in your blood from damage by free radicals – a first step in the development of atherosclerosis. In a study involving 27 healthy subjects (14 women, 13 men), eating freshly chopped chili was found to increase the resistance of blood fats, such as cholesterol and triglycerides, to oxidation (free radical injury).
In cultures where people enjoy lots of food laced with spicy flavor, there is a lower incidence of heart attacks. Could capsaicin be the heart-helping ingredient? Researchers once thought that capsaicin would send blood pressure sky-high, but the opposite could be true. As mentioned above, capsaicin can be a shock to your system at first, but over time, you can get used to it. Evidence is preliminary, but there’s a possibility that capsaicin could be used as a treatment to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Eating meals with capsaicin-rich peppers may also help to regulate blood sugar levels and lower the risk of diabetes. And when you lower your diabetes risk, your blood pressure, and your cholesterol, you lower your overall heart health risks!
Generally speaking, the hotter the pepper, the higher the capsaicin content. So, spice your foods with hot peppers and gain the health benefits that folks in the tropical locales have enjoyed for a long time. Hot peppers can spice up salsas, salad dressings, soups, and vegetables. They also work as a balance to bitter foods like greens. To cool the hotness of those peppers, mix spicy peppers with more neutral tasting foods. These foods may include, yogurt, avocado, mango, papaya, or cilantro. Try a variety of peppers from the capsicum family: anaheim, bell, cayenne, jalapeno, pepperoncini, poblano, serrano, habanero, and tabasco. Chili peppers have a mistaken reputation for contributing to stomach ulcers. Not only do they not cause ulcers, they can help prevent them by killing bacteria you may have ingested, while stimulating the cells lining the stomach to secrete protective buffering juices.
Red Chili Peppers have significant amounts of the following vitamins and minerals:
Vitamin E – Excellent
Vitamin A – Very good
Fiber – Very good
Vitamin B6 – Very good
Vitamin K – Very good
Copper – Very good
Iron – Very good
Manganese – Good
Vitamin B3 – Good
Vitamin B2 – Good
Potassium – Good
Many people adhere to the Scoville organoleptic test to determine heat or capsaicin content; however, the test is flawed in that it is highly subjective. Currently, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is used to measure the capsaicin content of the various hot chili peppers that exist. This laboratory procedure gives an exact measure of capsaicin, which is given in American Spice Trade Association pungency units but typically converted to and stated as Scoville Heat Units, as these are better known. These are not published publically and the American Spice Association charges for these published results. It is quite expensive to perform these tests.
Read more Chilli Misconceptions 5: Heat Level X
For most of us, we can get a relatively good concept of the heat (capsaicin) content of hot peppers by simply following the Scoville Unit list.
Scoville Units in some of the more common hot chili peppers:
2 jalapeno (for hotter use serrano or tobasco) peppers, seeded and chopped
1/2 t. black pepper – fresh ground is better
1 1/4 cups apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher or pickling salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Preparation:
Prepare 8 pint (or 16-1/2 pint) jars, lids, and rings
Sterilize the jars and keep them in the hot water till time for processing
Make sure to fill a water bath canner and get the water to a simmer
Core the tomatoes and strain the pulp through a fine mesh strainer
Cut all the vegetables and measure out spices
Set aside
Cooking:
In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine tomatoes, celery, onions, green peppers and hot peppers
Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently
Reduce heat, cover and boil gently until vegetables soften, about 30 minutes
Working in batches, transfer mixture to a blender or food processor fitted with a metal blade and puree until smooth
Return pot to heat and low boil, stirring occasionally, until the sauce reduces by half, about 45 minutes
Add vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, and spices to the tomatoes
Increase heat to medium and boil gently, stirring frequently, for about 20 minutes
Using the process before in batches you will again blend till smooth, return to the heat until its the consistancy of a commercial barbecue sauce, about 1 hour
Filling the jars:
On a dish towel place your hot jars and using a funnel fill each jar
Leave 1/2” headspace
Remove air bubbles and refill to the 1/2″ headspace if needed
Taking a clean papertowel and wipe the rims
Extract the lids from the hot water and place them on jar rims using tongs
Add the rings to each of the jars and finger tighten
Processing:
Make sure a rack is on the bottom of the canner and place the jars in the water bath
Make sure the water covers the jars by an inch or two
Cover the pot and turn up the heat under the canner and wait for the water to start boiling
Once the water has come to a boil start a timer for 35 minutes
When the 35 minutes are up, remove the jars and place them back on the dishtowel in a place that they will sit overnight to cool
This batch ended up as 36 quarts. Here is the breakdown for the batch:
40 pounds of fresh pickling cucumbers
Over 15 Quarts of Water
Over 25 Cups of Apple Cider Vinegar
Over 4 Cups of Salt
2 – 1/4 Cups Dill Seed
4 – 1/2 Cups Garlic Chips
4 – 1/2 Cayenne Flakes
Fresh Dill Heads and Tabasco Peppers
Comments: The cucumbers were fresh and excellent in color, shape, and taste. This seems to be a great year for produce in general. Since there was very little waste, I packed these as tightly as possible.
ULTRA HOT Garlic Dills
I had some pickling solution leftover when making the regular batch of hot garlic dills along with some cucumbers. I located several more jars and decided to pump up the heat. I added powdered cayenne to the pickling solution and added dried red hot chilies to the jar. They are not too hot, but they are a bit spicier than the regular hot garlic dills. The taste is still real good!