Inspired by my Hometown Texaco
I grew up in a tiny farming community where the best places to eat were the apple orchards or the gas station... And I am not exaggerating. I have great memories during high school when you would see almost everyone from town taking a lunch break at the Texaco deli. From the superintendent to the sheriff, it was the place to be. They made hamburgers, Mexican food, Chinese food, Italian sodas and what I thought was average deli snacks.
However, since I have left home and travelled to bigger cities, I have yearned for some of my favorite foods that I seemed to take for granted. Jalapeno poppers have been some of my biggest cravings. So far I have only found their equal in my hometown.
Yesterday I finally broke down and decided to do the impossible: make my own cream-cheese-stuffed-breaded-and-fried-jalapenos from scratch and without a recipe. My husband helped, but warned me that I was not allowed to do it alone. (I have never fried anything before and planned on throwing the hot oil down the sink when we were done.) Now I know that there are a lot of good skills I can learn from the gas station deli lady.
1. Split four or five jalapenos down the middle and then gut the insides.
2. Mix together half a brick of cream cheese with any herbs/spices you want. Chives, onions, Creole, cumin...
3. Fill the jalapeno with cream cheese mixture and then spread some on the outside of the jalapeno as well. (We figured this out from trial and error because it makes the breading mixture stick easier)
4. Rest your jalapeno and prep three bowls with different ingredients. One bowl with an egg and milk mixture, another bowl with flour and the third bowl with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, cumin or whatever else you like.
5. Roll the jalapeno in flour. Then egg. Then breadcrumbs. Then egg. Then breadcrumbs. Then egg. Then breadcrumbs. As you can tell, I like a lot of crunchy breading.
6. Heat oil to about 365 degrees. You will know when it is ready when you drop a piece of breading in the pan and it bubbles. Cook jalapeno poppers for about 2-3 minutes on each side.
That's it! They don't seem too hard when I write down the instructions. Imp proud of my little jalapeno poppers... Even though Iād rather stop by our gas station and pick a basket up. If you have a great jalapeno popper provider take advantage of it for me!!!