"Cooking is both a skill and an art. The skill is in the technique, the art is in the flavor." -Jacob Schenk
I had made notes on meals previous to this, but I seem to have misplaced them, so this is my first contribution to this blog. Tonight's meal is Veracruz Stuffed Peppers.
Stuffing:
- Bell Peppers
- Black Beans
- Black Garlic
- Catfish bits
- Cilantro
- Cream Cheese
- Cumin
- Dried Chili (1)
- Habinaro Orange Sauce
- "Magic" Pepper
- Onion
- Peruvian Death Pepper (1)
- Pepper-jack Cheese
- Pineapple
- Preserved Lime (just a bit of one)
- Rice
- Salt
- Sundried Tomatoes
- Tamarin
And for a side:
- Cabbage (thinly sliced, lightly salted)
- Cilantro Sauce (Cilantro, Pickled Thai Cucumber Salad [which was created before I stared taking food notes])
- Fish Sauce
- Leeks
- Onions (various)
- Mushrooms (Button, King Trumpets, and Beech)
- Pepper
- Salt
- Tequila
- Tomatoes
Outcome:
Two of the stuffed peppers were really hot, according to the four people eating them. It wasn't completely subjective because the two people who didn't have the very spicy ones tried a spicy one and concurred that it was in fact noticeably/significantly more spicy. I tried the farce (stuffing) prior to it being grilled, and it tasted really good. After it was grilled, I unfortunately couldn't fully appreciate the flavour of all the ingredients because I got a super spicy one.
Post-consumption analysis discussion led to the conclusion that it was the temperature differentiation in the cooking. Two of them were cooked on a shelf above the other two in the grill, and we are thinking that cooking it at a temperature lower than the others and then putting it in higher temperature regions led to the Peruvian peppers reacting differently. Perhaps for your own personal tastes, you may want to omit the Peruvian pepper. Just sayin'.
However, the mushroom/cilantro tacos were amazing. The mushrooms were grilled with the peppers. Jacob put Apple Tree wood on the grill. The mushrooms absorbed the smoky flavour absolutely brilliantly. The cilantro sauce went perfect with it, and I personally am not a huge fan of cilantro. However, this dinner may have to make me reconsider belonging to the Ban Cilanro community. (This one.) It was that good.
- Veronica Odden