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Hot Serrano Peppers Preserved in Oil

Developed from an original recipe by Shruti Mehta. Whatever we were supposed to be cooking, it was pretty easy to side-track Shruti in to talking about something else. I would get home with the margins of my hand-outs filled with scrawled recipes for other dishes. At the bottom of the hand-out for saffron rice, I have "Chili Pickle — works well with Serranos", a short list of ingredients and some basic instructions. By pure coincidence, Jean, who gardens, was experimenting with a variety of Serrano Peppers called "Hot Rod", that has a reputation for considerable heat. I messed about with proportions and ended up with what appears here. I didn't write down was what to do with this "pickle" when it was made, so I put it on bread and melted cheese over it. I also cook with it instead of green chilis when they are out of season. Everyone I give some to discovers new uses. I ignorantly changed the name because I did not know that the term pickling includes the preservation of food in vegetable oil.

Getting Hold of the Peppers

Bad news — you're not going to be able to pick up "Hot Rod" Serranos in the grocery department of Walmart. In fact, you're probably going to have to grow them yourself. At first (2015), we bought the seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds, but during the COVID pandemic they became unavailable. Eventually, a substitute was offered, but the peppers had nothing like the heat of "Hot Rod" and we looked elsewhere. in 2023, we found real "Hot Rod" Serranos at Reimer Seeds.

Serranos are easy enough to grow anywhere in the US. In cooler areas, start them inside and plant them out when it is warm enough. In the Boston area, this is around Memorial Day. We begin harvesting in early August and continue through to the end of October. Yield is 20 to 40 peppers per plant. Although we are plagued by chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels and all manner of flying and crawling bugs, nothing attacks our Serranos.

If you want to cook with the peppers rather than make this pickle, you can just blanch them as described below and then freeze them. They lose a little bit of heat, but less than they will lose during cooking. If you're into bravado and want to eat a "Hot Rod" Serrano raw, start with a very small piece and have milk, yogurt, etc. on hand.

Once You've Got the Peppers

1. Begin by blanching the peppers. Boil a pan of water, throw in five at a time and scoop them back out after about fifteen seconds, quenching them in iced water. Between each batch, let the pan come back to a boil. When they are all done and completely cool, drain off the water and pat them dry on a dish towel (no, not paper towels).
2. Slice the peppers into thin disks, about eight per inch, discarding the stem end. Depending on how you will use them, you might want to chop them up a bit more, but not too fine, OK? You can cut them lengthwise, remove the seeds and then slice them across, but this is a lot of trouble. Oh, I nearly forgot, you should wear latex gloves to keep the capsaicin off your hands.
3. Gather up the pepper slices, leaving behind any seeds that fall out, and measure how much you've got, in cups (one cup, US customary, is about 240 milliliters). The list of ingredients, above, gives quantities per cup of sliced peppers.
4. Sprinkle on the salt and stir it into the peppers. Cover and let sit at room temperature for about a day. Then drain off the salty liquid that collects.
5. Thoroughly crush the mustard seeds with a mortar and pestle. (OK, use a spice grinder if you must.) Mix this into the peppers with the turmeric and hing. Again, let sit, covered, at room temperature for two or three days.
6. Transfer the mixture into sterile glass jars and tamp down. Now add the oil and let it stand, topping up from time to time, until it has displaced all the air. Add peppers and oil until the jars are very nearly full of peppers and the oil forms an unbroken layer on top.
7. Seal the jars tightly. Then simply store them at room temperature. You can probably start using them right away, but I choose to wait three weeks for the flavors to meld. My peppers easily last from one year to the next and when a glut year was followed by a deficit, they were still fine two years out.

Using Other Peppers

If you don't want to grow your own "Hot Rod" peppers and you can't entice someone else into doing it for you, you're going to have to use something else. The only thing I have to say about this is that the quantities of all ingredients have been chosen based on the heat of "Hot Rod" Serranos. For example, if you use store-bought Serranos, they will be much, much less hot and the spices (mustard seed and hing) may be overpowering. Just make sensible adjustments and you will find a new balance.