Red Lobster "Poppers"
Diana
(appetizer w/cheese, in chiles)
Thanks,
Diana
BrawnyBear
writes:
>Subject: Red Lobster "Poppers"
>From: di...@ebicom.net (Diana )
>Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 01:38:11 GMT
If you think that Red Lobster makes them...you must be dreaming. They
buy them from Sam's Wholesale, just like every other diner place does in
the US of A. Go take a look, and you will be amazed on how much you can
find there that is preported to be fine dining. Just buy a box and
heat up the oil!
P. Sind-Prunier
If you think that Red Lobster makes them...you must be dreaming.
They
buy them from Sam's Wholesale, just like every other diner place
does in
the US of A.
OK. Then how does Sam's supplier make them? Is there anything
besides cream cheese inside? And what is used for the breading?
I crave those darn things and neither Sam's nor Dead Lobster is
open at 3:00 a.m.! ;-).
Scott Watson
With Red Lobster's corporate buying power, I can assure you
they don't do much shopping at Sam's :)
The company that makes the poppers sold in every place I know is
Anchor, P.O. Box 2164, Appleton, WI 54913, Phone (800)852-7412.
Just about every foodservice supplier carries them, so get chummy
with a bar owner and they'll order you a case at less than Sam's
charges. Currently, they come in six styles: Jalapeno/Cheddar,
Red Chile/Cream Cheese, Tequila, Italian, Jalapeno/Cream Cheese,
and Gyro. Anchor also does custom poppers for chains.
My business only uses the Jalapeno/Cheddar and Red Chile/Cream Cheese
(which is wonderful, believe it or not,served with marinara sauce for
dipping), so I can't tell you anything about the other flavors.
What I can tell you, however, is that Anchor advertises that it
will send a free sample kit to any bar/restaurant that requests it.
Good luck, Scott Watson
James Harvey
[someone wanted Dead Lobster's recipe for poppers, someone else
speculated that they get 'em at Sam's Wholesale like everyone else, snip]
>
> OK. Then how does Sam's supplier make them? Is there anything
> besides cream cheese inside? And what is used for the breading?
The standard diner/barfood popper appears to be a half a jalapeno, stemmed
and seeded, stuffed with a Velveeta-like substance and covered with heavy
generic batter like that used with other standard deep-fried barfoods. They
also seem to use the modern wimpy variety of jalapenos (very little heat).
> I crave those darn things and neither Sam's nor Dead Lobster is
> open at 3:00 a.m.! ;-).
Making poppers is a lot of work compared to the effort required to eat
them, which is probably the raison d'etre of the standard barfood popper.
However, if you are up to it, here is a recipe that was recently posted
to the chile-heads mailing list by Scott Selhorst. Mr. Selhorst has given
me permission to repost it here, and adds that a tablespoon of hot sauce
does indeed work well in the batter and the thin batter makes great crispies.
===== Begin attachment from CHILE-HEADS mailing list =====
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 95 08:52:27 -0400
From: s-seh...@ds.mc.ti.com (Scott Sehlhorst)
Subject: Capone Popper Recipe
Message-ID: <950831125...@pan.mc.ti.com>
Thanks to John "L8r" Gunterman for getting me to get off my duff and write
down this holy grail of a recipe!
It took 3 moths of painstaking research to create this thing, and will
take almost as long to read, but if you're a popper fan, it's worth it.
Keep in mind this is the culmination of a search for the _perfect_ popper.
This recipe has some substantial prep work, in return for minimal effort
when you actually cook/eat them.
Capone Poppers
--------------
There are essentially 5 functional parts of the perfect popper.
1) The pepper
2) The filling
5 (no, 3 sir) 3) The initial batter
4) The breading
5) The final batter
This recipe is for 150-200 poppers (to be made in advance, silly)
The pepper
Fresh jalapenos. I've made hab-poppers. I could only eat 2. Those deep
fried death bombs are only for the most seasoned of leathermouths! Take
your big batch of fresh picked (not pickled, canned, etc)jalapenos and
wash them. The ideal popper is 100% edible, so that you can pop the whole
thing in your mouth, hence the name. A potato peeler with a pointed end is
the perfect tool for deseeding. The radius of the peeler allows you to
make a hole about 1 cm in diameter, which is optimized for efficient seed
removal, effective stuffing of popper, and minimal leakage (more on that
later). Stab the pepper adjacent to the stem, with the stem on the concave
side of your peeler, remove, turn pepper roughly 1 radian and repeat. After
3 or 4 stabs, you will have seperated the stem from the rest of the pepper.
Pull out, with slight twisting motion, and you will remove most of the
seeds. A little additional scraping may be required to get out the innards.
Your popper is now a capone (castrated one, I think). Put aside and repeat
until done. If you do 200 peppers, it will take about an hour, depending
on how many times you scratch your eye. Add a half hour for each incidental
mucous membrane contact. My fingers were starting to 'prune' from the jap
juice when I finished. People who haven't burned their fingers on oven
doors and hot pans enough times to kill their nerves should probably wear
gloves.
The filling
Cheese was a challenge. Cream cheese was a little bland. Cheddar was just
too oily when it broke down. Mozz & other white cheeses were just missing
something. Velveeta is only allowed in seven chile-head dishes, and this
isn't one of them. Cream cheese had the best consistency when cooked, but
cheddar/monteray jack blend has the best flavor. Mix equal weights of cream
cheese, finely shredded cheddar (sharp or v.sharp), and finely shredded
monteray jack. My batch used 8 ounces of each, which conveniently was also
one package of each. Mix these togethor in a bowl, until additional mixing
makes no change in consistency. You should have one big icky glob that has
a wonderful aroma. If, after stuffing 200 poppers you have lost your
appetite because of the cheese smell, don't worry, you won't be eating them
that day.
The batters
Both of them have basically the same ingredients. The differences are in
consistency (and time of preperation). Don't use milk for the batter. It
won't grab the pepper, because of the waxy consistency. Beer works best of
beer, water,& milk. Use generic fried vegetable batter (I used the Chuck
Wagon stuff), and an equal part of flour. Season with garlic salt, black
pepper, onion salt, and powdered cayenne for color (both in the batter and
in the unsuspecting faces of your guests). I used about 1 teaspoon of each
to about 1/2 cup each of chuck wagon stuff and flour.
For the initial batter, you want it very thick, thicker than pancake batter.
This is to hold the breading to the popper. If you add too much beer at the
start, add flour to thicken. I think it took about half a beer for this, YMWV.
For the final batter, you want it very thin, it should take less than a
second for the batter to 'climb' the tines of a fork when removed and held
vertically over the batter. This has an added bonus of making those little
crunchy things to eat with the poppers. This was still less than a whole beer,
so don't get too carried away- make it thick ad add the beer in small amts.
Remember, don't make this until you're serving them!
The breading
Just a plate with a pile of white cornmeal, dry.
The process
After coring a sinkfull of peppers, stuff them all full of the cheese. Use
your pinky to pack the cheese in good, leaving about a 1/4 inch divot on the
end of the pepper (recessed cheese, in case I'm not being clear). Then
line up your thick batter and corn meal, and an oven tray lined with aluminum
foil. Dip the pepper in the batter, holding by the cheese and tip ends.
Allow as much of the excess batter as you can stand to drip off. Then place
the pepper in the corn meal. Pick up a handfull of meal and bury the pepper.
Place your hand on top of the pile (cupped), and apply some light pressure
to help everything pack together. Pik up the pepper and shake off the excess
meal. Again, handle the pepper by the tips, it helps minimize the bald spots.
Place the pepper on the tray, and repeat a million (ok, 200, but it seems
like a million) times. Place the pan in the freezer. This is called flash
freezing. After about half an hour (the time it takes to fill the next tray)
remove the first tray, and place all of the poppers in a big ziplock bag (or
tupperware, or an iron box, whatever floats your boat). But the bag back in
the freezer. Wait overnight or longer.
The serving of and eating of poppers
Heat up grease in your fridaddy (or cauldron). Make the final (thin) batter.
Get some of your frozen poppers. Some of the breading may have come off in
spots, don't sweat it. Dip the popper in the thin batter and put in the
grease. Don't worry about excess batter dripping in the grease, it makes
good eats. Cook until golden brown. Conveniently, this is also the point
where the cheese is melted, yet the pepper isn't overcooked.
Pop in yer mouth
I made 14 in two batches, with the following results
0 poppers leaking cheese
0 poppers having burnt spots
0 poppers losing breading
14 poppers tasting like fresh peppers
14 poppers being crisp enough to bite, but not so crisp that they don't flex
14 poppers where the cheese was perfectly melted
14 poppers that were golden brown
Possible variations:
A friend suggested that they initial batter/breading might have nothing to
do with the success of the final batter sticking, that the freezing may be
the trick there. If true, It would save a lot of work! I haven't had a
chance to try it yet, but it is popper season, and the thread is really
picking up steam right now, and these really are great, so I wanted to post
the recipe before everyone was sick of poppers, so I could get even more
feedback. Please tell me how these turn out when you try them!
I had an idea to add hot sauce to the batter (with the beer), to give an
extra boost, but I haven't tried it yet. If it's a great idea, and it
makes the perfect onion rings, then you saw it here first.
I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve, but I'll save them for when the
thread on fried banana pepper skins starts.
Scott "leave em wantin a little more" Sehlhorst
===== End of attachment from CHILE-HEADS mailing list =====
--
James Harvey har...@iupui.edu Disclaimer: My opinions; I don't speak for I.U.
Quis de culo muris curat?
BrawnyBear
Watson ) writes:
>With Red Lobster's corporate buying power, I can assure you
>they don't do much shopping at Sam's :)
>
>
Yes...but you don't need to buy 2500 pounds at Sams They are available in
2 pound bags.