How can I preserve the green chili peppers in my garden?!
How can I preserve the green chili peppers in my garden?
I started a garden with the intention of making my own salsa, but the pepper have all come in before the tomatos. I have a lot of "salsa green" peppers (they look like green chilis), the red chilis are still growing.
How should I preserve them so I can still put them in salsa in a month? Should I pickle them, dry them, grill them, or make them into a green chili paste?
Or should I just make green tomato salsa?
Answers:
I’m from New Mexico and Green Chile here is serious business.
You need to freeze your chile.
Roast the whole peppers over an open flame or under the oven broiler until the skin on all sides is black and blistered. Put the roasted peppers into a bowl and cover with a damp towel. Once all your chile is roasted, you can either bag it whole and unpeeled or you can peel it, chop it and freeze it. If you freeze it whole, you will need to peel it when you use it. Either way works fine, one is just a little more work up front.
Roasting the chile on a gas grill or even a charcoal fire works very well, or over a burner on a gas stove, no pan needed, just hold the chile in the flame.
Around where I live, the scent of roasting chile in the air is a signal of late summer and fall. Absolutely divine.