Jalapeño Popper Loaf

Have you ever tried those restaurant appetizers called "Jalapeño Poppers"?  They are hollowed-out Jalapeño peppers stuffed with cheese and spices, breaded, and deep fried (sometimes even wrapped in bacon).  They likely originated as an Americanized version of the Mexican Chile Relleno.   The fire in the Jalapeños is mostly extinguished by heating it, and by combining it with bread and cheese.  Both grain and dairy products seem to be the best neutralizers of the burn from hot peppers which comes from a substance known as "capsaicin".  Don't try to put the fire out with water as capsaicin is a hydrophobic compound (repels water).  Anyway, back to Jalapeño Poppers...they are decadently delicious but they are also very high in calories and fat.  What if you could enjoy that same amazing bouquet of flavors in a slice of whole grain sourdough?

Here is a recipe for an amazing sourdough loaf with no added oil, made mostly with whole wheat flour, and loaded with diced Jalapeño peppers and  sharp white Irish Cheddar cheese.  Don't worry about this loaf being spicy hot--the same factors that mitigate the fire in the Jalapeño Popper appetizers do an even better job of quenching their fire in this loaf.


This concoction came about the way most of my innovations do...I got a good deal!  I am a relentless bargain hunter.  I don't believe in planning menus.  I simply get the best bargains I can find and then start figuring out how to use the food I have on hand.  I call these my "what-do-I-have-in-the-fridge" recipes and ironically they are not only my most innovative but they often become my favorites!   In this case I was shopping at a wonderful grocery store that buys and resells overstocks, expired products etc.  Their quality is high and their prices are low.  It's nearly an hours drive away (near our regional international airport) so I usually only get there when I make a trip to drop someone off.  This last trip I found wedges of Extra-Sharp White Irish Cheddar cheese (a gourmet cheese that normally costs over $10 / lb.) on sale for $2.65 / lb.  I bought several.  I also found Jalapeño peppers on sale at 2 lbs. for $1.   At the same time I was trying to make a homemade sourdough starter from kefir.  I was successful in brewing up a very active starter using kefir, flour, and water but that's the topic of a different post.  My random bargains and my science project converged in my mind into one of the best flavor combinations I've ever had in an artisan bread loaf.  I named it the Jalapeño Popper loaf because that is what it tastes like to eat it.  It's so good you can eat it naked (i.e. with no toppings or dressing of any kind--just the straight bread) but it is also makes an amazing sandwich.  For example see the pesto/mayo, avocado, tomato, bacon lettuce sandwich above.

Here is how to make the amazing Jalapeño Popper Loaf:

• 4 cups Sourdough Starter
• 1 cup Kefir or Buttermilk
• 6 cups Whole-Wheat Flour (more or less) - freshly ground
• 1 Tbsp Salt
• 3 large fresh Jalapeño Peppers - membranes and seeds removed, then diced
• 8 oz. Extra-Sharp Cheddar Cheese - chopped and crumbled

Mix the starter, kefir, 5 cups of flour, and salt in your mixer and mix into a dough.  Continue to add flour until the dough springs back when you poke it.  Place it in a bowl and let it raise for two or three hours (the slow raise enhances the sourdough flavor).

 
Roll out a large rectangle of dough, sprinkle it thickly with the diced peppers and crumbled cheese.  Fold it over three times, turn and fold it over three more times. Place the ball of dough in a cast-iron dutch-oven lined with parchment.  Place in a slightly warm oven with the light on and raise it until it's doubled (in my case that was about two hours).  Put the lid on the dutch-oven set your kitchen oven to 500 degrees fahrenheit.  Set a timer for 30 minutes, take off the lid of the dutch oven, and bake for another 10 minutes to brown the crust and finish baking.  Exercise great self control by not cutting into this bread for about 10 more minutes after taking it out of the oven. The residual heat actually finishes baking the bread in the minutes after it is removed from the oven.

Eat this fresh or freeze it to eat later.  It keeps well in the freezer if you put it in airtight plastic.  It may look like a pain to make, but it's fascinating and SO WORTH IT!