Green Serrano Chile (Powder)

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

All chiles in Mexico have two names for fresh, and dried. Serrano chiles, dried, are usually labeled “chiles secos” in Spanish, although they go by several regional names (See AKA, below.).

They have a medium heat, at 10,000-23,000 SHU, and light flavor. Unripe, they are green. The color, once they mature, can vary from a darker green to red, brown, orange, or yellow. Serranos, for their size, are more fleshy.

Ground is really more about the heat than the flavor. It’s a good medium heat/pungency pepper for dry rubs, sprinkling over elotes, or vegetables, or working into ground meat spicing.

EXPERIENCE

Unlike the raw, where you get hit with bell-pepper flavor and medium heat, you’ll get a more intensified heat with the powder, with a trace of the sweet, and fruity notes of the bell pepper.

CULINARY GEOGRAPHY

The majority of Serrano chile pepper production comes from Mexico. Sinaloa, Veracruz, Nayarit and Tamaulipas states produce the most.

TRADITIONAL USES

• Chuletas;
• Tamales verdes de puerco;
• Salsa de Seco;
• Camarones a la Mexicana.

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• Huevos Nayarit is my tribute to the fertile region in Mexico. A poached egg on a bed of minced pork, beans, coarse ground peanut, and corn in a spicy seco sauce;
• Steak broiled in a Serrano-cumin butter with onions, garlic, and green plantains;
• Fish, pan seared with cilantro-lime-seco and avocado oil, drizzled with an avocado aioli, on cilantro rice;
• Fun bit of kick in my Tex-Mex chocolate ice cream with churro bits in a seco-sugar-cinnamon crust.

THE BACKSTORY

The Serrano pepper is believed to have originated in Mexico, near the mountains of Puebla and Hidalgo. The chiles get their name from the mountains of the Sierra Madres. In the Mexican stable of chiles, they are one of the hotter domestic peppers.

AKA

• Chiles secos
• Chiles balin
• Chiles chico
• Chiles tipico
• Chiles largo

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