Thanks to the fact that the weather in Texas still hasn’t realized it’s fall yet, my serrano pepper plants just keep cranking out peppers — like 30-40 a week. I’ve canned enough pepper jelly to keep us well stocked this winter AND still have enough left over for gift-giving, so this week I thought I’d try something a little different.
Chili powder is traditionally made with the tamer poblano, arbol, or cascabel chiles, but so long as you’re not afraid of a little heat, serranos will work too. To get started, you have to dry the chiles, and in super-humid Texas, the only realistic way to do that is with a food dehydrator.
20 hours at about 150 degrees got my big basket of serranos just where I wanted them – just past leathery, nearly bordering on plastic-y feeling. Then, we actually ordered a brand new spice/coffee grinder from Amazon to test this out, and sure enough, it works great. 60 seconds of grinding and I had a nice, fine powder on my hands.
Finally, I added a tablespoon of garlic powder and a tablespoon of cumin and voila – a perfect chili powder, just begging to be turned into chili should the weather ever actually get cold out. I’ll let you know how it turns out next time I cook with it!
