Friday, May 21, 2010

Mexican Pepper Casserole

WOW! This recipe for Mexican Pepper Casserole (page 163) is GOOD! I made it this afternoon and took it to a potluck tonight. It was the hit of the party. Someone described it as "Mexican comfort food".... kind of like a Mexican version of macaroni and cheese without the pasta. I could have had it as a main dish with a green salad on the side for a whole meal.
As I was starting to prepare it, I looked at the recipe and immediately got out the food processor when I realized that it called for slicing 6 peppers into thin strips. Green peppers were on sale today at Market Place, so I took advantage of that. I did add red and orange peppers to the green ones to add a variety of color. I used the food processor for the peppers, onions, and cheese which worked great with the slicing blade. I didn't change anything about the recipe, which is unusual for me. I usually have to tweak a recipe in some way, just to exert my dominance. The spice was perfectly balanced. One item I was confused about was "red pepper". Isn't that paprika? I didn't add red pepper, just the black pepper. The format of the recipe is a bit odd at that section, so maybe it says "1/4 tsp each -- black pepper and red paprika" but with funny spacing. I used Greenbank Farm's Sharp Cheddar cheese for the cheese (available in the health food section of Market Place). When this casserole cooks, the custard top raises up really high like a souffle and looks beautiful with a wonderful carmelizing on the top surface. It's still pretty impressive after it falls. And it smells awesome!
I started out with a cast iron Dutch oven pan instead of a skillet. The volume of the onions and peppers would overwhelm any skillet I own, I'm afraid. I did have to saute the veggies a bit longer (10 extra minutes) because the sides of the Dutch oven prevented the evaporation you would expect in a shallower pan. It was quite easy to chop, cook and assemble. The recipe book says 1-1/2 to 2 hours, and I think it was about 1-1/2 hours including baking for 45 minutes. And as you can see from the photo, I baked it in a Corning bowl instead of a real casserole dish. I don't know that I have a large enough casserole for this quantity after you get the custard on it.

2 comments:

  1. That is one beautiful casserole! And it looks yummy, to boot. The cookbook I have (from the library) has this recipe on p. 137 and calls for "black pepper, to taste" followed by "cayenne, to taste" (at the end it also has "paprika, for the top"), so I'm guessing that the red pepper referenced in your recipe was supposed to be cayenne. And my cookbook has the peppers and onions cooking in a dutch oven, just the way you did it. I'm curious about this because I just noticed that the recipe has an intro that says, "The original version of this recipe contained butter . . . " Is that the recipe you made? Just wondering because in my book, butter makes everything better. If yours was made with butter, maybe I'll try this other version and we can compare the two.

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  2. This sounds wonderful! I am so glad you made it. I would have looked at the recipe and seen "sour cream", which Adam does not eat, and moved on. It seems quite worthwhile to make for guests and myself!

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