September 20, 2002
Jalapeño Poppers Pt. 2
posted by Nadia

Actually, it's the third time we've made jalapeño poppers, but our first (and most successful) attempt was before we came up with the ingenious concept of a website. As you may recall from our last episode (Jalapeño Poppers Pt. 1), we had some trouble with getting the cheesy filling to stay in the pepper while frying. This time, Carl recommended we fry them cheese-side down first so that the cheese would develop a protective crust -- I believe last time we did them pepper-side down first, which presumably warmed the cheese enough that the subsequent cheese-side fry was a failure. To test this theory, we did one pepper-side down and the rest cheese-side down. The one we fried pepper-side down first had an obvious cheesy exodus when we flipped it, but the remaining peppers didn't fare much better. I'd estimate that about two-thirds of the completed poppers ended up crusty but cheeseless, as before. And yet, the first time I made these they were perfect! If only I could figure out where we've gone wrong ....