Bacon Jalapeno Popper Puffs - How to Make Jalapeno Popper Puffs

Hello , this is Chef John from food wishes dot com with bacon jalapeno popper puffs .

That's right .

If you've ever made up a batch of jalapeno poppers and thought to yourself , these are amazing , but I wish they were lighter , more delicious and way , way easier .

Well , then good news because these could be exactly what you've been looking for .

In fact , if it wasn't for all those incredibly dark and incredibly distracting spots , these would have been just about the perfect puffs .

But anyway , we'll discuss the aesthetics later for now .

Let's go ahead and get started with what is a very , very simple recipe .

So first up , we're gonna cook about four strips of bacon , nice and crisp .

And once that cools , we'll chop it up nice and fine and reserve it until later .

But wait , that's not all .

We also want to reserve one tablespoon of that rendered bacon fat for the dough , which by the way is the next step .

So let's head over to the stove and place a pan down on medium high heat into which we are going to add some fresh cold water as well as a nice big chunk of butter and the aforementioned tablespoon of rendered bacon fat .

And of course , we're also gonna need a little bit of salt .

So we'll toss some of that in and other than our flour , that's about it for this very primitive dough .

So , what we're gonna do is wait for this mixture to start to simmer .

And by the way , make sure you've already measured your flour and have it close by because what we're gonna do as soon as it starts to boil is turn our heat down to medium and we'll go ahead and stir in our flour all at once .

So don't be scared , just dump it all in and then using the tip of a wooden spoon , we will carefully stir all that together .

And for the first few seconds , you're mostly just trying to not knock everything out of the pan .

But after a few seconds of thoughtful stirring , it should start to pull together .

And at that point , we'll go from kind of stirring with the tip to kind of mixing and mashing with the back of the spoon .

And as you can see , that's all gonna come together and it'll start to pull off cleanly from the bottom of the pan .

And after about 2 to 3 minutes of mix in mash , in stirring and smearing your mixture should resemble something very close to this .

And once that's been accomplished , we will remove that from the heat and transfer that into a mixing bowl where we're gonna let it cool for about five minutes or so because we're gonna whisk in a couple of eggs here and we do not want those to scramble .

So , what I'd like to do is just break it up with a whisk a little bit , which is gonna help release a lot of that trapped in heat and we'll let that sit , like I said , about five minutes or so , at which point it should be safe to add our two eggs .

But we don't want to add those both at once .

We will add them one at a time .

So I'm gonna toss one in and take my whisk and kind of give it a little mix off to the side before attempting to whisk it into the entire mixture .

And this is one of those recipes where video is a huge advantage because what's gonna happen is you mix this egg in , it's gonna look all wet and greasy and separated and generally like something went tragically wrong .

And if you were going by a written recipe , you'd probably stop and throw it away at this point .

But thanks to the power of video , as you can see if you just keep stirring , it will eventually kind of all smear together and get all wadded up into a sticky mess inside your whisk , which is exactly what we want and means everything's ok .

So we will take a spatula and clean that off and then repeat the exact same process with the second egg .

All right , you're gonna crack it in , you're gonna start mixing , it's gonna not look good , but you will press on and keep whisking and this will all come together into a very sticky dough which again will be stuck on the inside of your whisk .

So we will go ahead and clean that off and of course , scrape down and clean off the sides , which because you're good people , I won't force you to watch .

So we will clean that up and our dough is now officially done and ready for the rest of the ingredients .

And of course , with this being a jalapeno popper puff , we're gonna need to add a whole bunch of finely diced jalapeno peppers .

And to accomplish that , this is the method I'm recommending .

I'm gonna go ahead and cut off the stem end and then what I'll do instead of cutting this in half and scraping out the seeds with a spoon , which is generally the accepted method .

I just like to go around with my knife shaving off the flesh .

And not only do I think that's a quicker and easier method for seeding a pepper .

But now I'm looking at some nice flat , relatively uniform pieces of pepper with which to cut strips and then eventually dice .

And of course , as many of you already know , the hottest part of a pepper is that white membrane around the seeds .

So I generally trim all that out .

But anyway , we're gonna clean those peppers up and then what we'll do is we'll cut them in thin strips .

And once that's been accomplished , we will turn those and cut across into a fine a dice as we want .

And as you can see , I want mine pretty fine .

So somehow some way we're gonna finally dice a whole bunch of jalapeno pepper at which point , we can add that to our dough along with our reserved bacon that we finally chopped .

And then besides the bacon and the peppers , we're also gonna add a nice big handful of sharp cheddar cheese or of course , the cheese of your choice .

You guys are the daddies of your puffs .

Speaking of which biggie smiles would have loved these balls and I have to give credit where credit's due .

Michelle came up with that one and then as far as seasoning goes , we don't need too much .

We'll do a nice pinch of freshly ground black pepper as well as a little be of the sea , which is food , which is slang for a little bit of cayenne .

And then we'll simply take a spatula and mix this thoroughly .

So sure you got to do a little bit of dying and a little bit of grating of cheese because only a crazy person buys pre grated cheese .

But anyway , the point is besides a little bit of dying and a little bit of grating the prep on these is way , way easier than your traditional Jalapeno popper , which is fine if you got a whole bunch of extra time .

But come on , you guys are on youtube .

So I know you're busy .

So we'll go ahead and mix that with our Ulla until thoroughly and utterly combined .

And then once that's been all mixed together , we have a couple options we could .

If we have to use it right away , it'll work .

But I much prefer to wrap it up and pop it in the fridge for a few hours .

So the dough is nice and cold .

So suit yourself .

Like I said , it will work .

But I did chill mine first .

After which we'll pull off the plastic and portion this for the fryer .

And for me , the easiest way to do that is with one of these little sorbet scoops , which gives you a nice size and shape .

And by the way , if you chill this dough , it should be firm enough for you to scoop a bunch of these ahead of time .

So I went ahead and I scooped my dough at which point we are ready to fry and we are gonna do that in 375 degree oil for about 3 to 4 minutes until these are beautifully golden brown and cooked through .

And so as not to splash myself , I like to lower them in with a fork .

So safety first , don't be dropping these in from like a foot away .

And then as he's fry , you really don't have too much to do .

But I do like to agitate them a little bit while they're frying .

It just feels like we should be doing something .

But anyway , like I said , we're gonna cook those for about 3 to 4 minutes , depending on the size until they look something like this .

So at that point , we'll remove them from the oil and transfer those on to Iraq to drain .

And it was right about here when I realized we might have a little trouble in paradise because what happened is those diced jalapenos that were on the surface , caramelizing that hot oil and got really dark , which really bothered me .

So I'm not sure if the appearance bothers you as much as it bothers me , but I really did want them to be as beautiful as they were light and delicious .

So I'll apologize in advance for the accidental metaphor .

But if you can get past the less than gorgeous exterior , it's the inside .

That really is what counts .

But appearances aside , these were absolutely to die for .

So I stopped feeling sorry for myself and I went ahead and plated those up .

And in keeping with the Jalapeno Popper theme , I served those with a very simple green onion and cream cheese dip , which of course , I will give you the recipe for on the blog .

And what I really love so much about these is we achieve such a similar flavor profile to your traditional jalapeno poppers .

And yet we accomplished that with a very simple , very light puff .

And while the texture was very light and airy , these things were still bursting with jalapeno and bacon flavor .

I really was just absolutely thrilled with how these came out except for the dots .

And one other thing I will mention because these are so airy and semi hollow .

If you're not into the cream cheese dip , you could even pipe cream cheese into the center of these .

Oh man , that would be good .

Some of you should try that and tell me how it goes .

So anyway , that's it .

One last easy and delicious appetizer before the big game .

Originally , this was supposed to be a big chicken wing video , but my oven broke and I never thought I would hear myself say this , but I'm so glad it did .

So I really do hope you give these a try soon .

Head over to food wishes dot com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always , enjoy .