We recently enjoyed a brunch at Dirty Food in Toronto.  I had their hamburger.  I don’t think I’ve ever met a burger I didn’t like or want to eat.  And Dirty Food didn’t disappoint.  They also happen to make superb home fries, which I love, but are so many times disappointing.  But, I digress.  Back to the burger….one of the items available to top my burger—candied jalapeños!  Why don’t I know about these?  They were wonderful…a little hot, a little sweet and totally delicious.  Well now, The Goddess had to reproduce them.  This is what I came up with.  I read some recipes on the “inter-webs”.  None of those recipes seemed to be anything like what I ate, so I thought about it and this is what I decided to do.

This recipe is simple.  It’s pretty much three ingredients—jalapeños, water and sugar.  Four, if you count a good healthy sprinkle of kosher salt.

Before we go any further, I had decided I didn’t want all the seeds.  I “cored” the pepper and removed most of the seeds, but left as much of the membranes intact as I could.  As I described in Hot Peppers Rings in Olive Oil with Garlic, roll the chiles back and forth, to loosen the seeds.  Remember to use gloves when handling chiles!! I know, The Goddess doesn’t have gloves on here, but I was careful to just touch the very outside of the chile, not the cut edge.  So far, so good.  When I was slicing the peppers, I had gloves on.  I promise.

This recipe is really more about technique.  I decided to make a simply syrup, sugar-centric.  I brought the syrup to the boil and boiled it for 5 minutes, until the bubbles went from finer to larger bubbles.  I don’t think that Dirty Food’s jalapeños had garlic, but you know The Goddess and her inordinate affection for garlic.  So, I added 4 cloves, which I thinly sliced, after 2 minutes of boiling, then continued to boil for 3 more minutes (5 minutes in total).  I dumped all the jalapeño slices into the pot, stirred them and continued to simmer for 5 minutes.  Stir them a couple of times, just to make certain they cook evenly.  The peppers themselves will release some liquid as they boil.  I scooped out the slices, spread them out on a cooling rack, set over a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet, to drain while I boiled down the syrup.  I reduced by almost half.  I stopped when the bubbles got large again.  Then, I just put the slices in a pint jar, sprinkled the salt over the little ringlets of deliciousness and poured the thickened syrup over the chiles, popped the cover on and into the fridge.  They turned out a nice bright green and the syrup is going to be so very nice to add to vinaigrettes or whatever little treat I can think of—maybe ice cream!  These are hot,  but not too hot…you know, a little sweet, a little hot.  We all know people like that, don’t we?   These keep pretty well, but don’t worry.  They’ll be gone in no time.

So the ringlets-of-wonder graced my chicken sandwich for lunch today.  Very nice.  They still have a little bit of tooth to them.  They will be wonderful on a fried eggs sandwich, a fence post, a slice of cheese and cracker, an old shoe…you get the picture.  Now, make these yourself so you can enjoy them, too.

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