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A pricing specific question but very happy for a wider debate as we love them.
How come we can buy a great big jar for £1 from our corner shop, Sainsbury’s own brand are £1 but for a much smaller jar or Old El Paso are £1.65.
They all taste the same to me.
Is it the usual story of exploitation and unsustainable cropping or is there more to it in terms of grades of quality?
Are there a rolls Royce of jalapeños I need in my life?
Thanks
Bored in lockdown
I'm now wondering if its too early for a second breakfast of M&S chilli and cheese hot cross buns i was saving for lunch.....
I find the more expensive and smaller old El Paso jars etc to be soggier and less potent. Best I’ve found are the Asda own jars for £1.20 - crunchy and fiery!
OEP are basically Neurofen and your corner shop is generic Ibuprofen tablets.
Pretty much exactly the same thing, does the same job (if you don't believe me, place a couple of drops of the juice from the jar in each eye). and a fraction of the cost.
Same reason Heinz ketchup is more expensive than supermarket own brand or lesser known brands, I guess.
Quality is not nessesarily worse or better, you just paying brand tax.
They all taste the same to me.
Yes, mostly white vinegar.
Old El Paso have been variously ‘crunchy, pale and soapy’ or ‘dark, sloppy and taste of nothing but sharp vinegar’ depending on luck. Always overpriced tho, IMO and don’t taste much if at all of the fruit. Stopped buying them decades ago.
I’ve found the Morrison’s salad/pizza bar to be the best (if most inconsistent) source. Especially when they sell them off in big tubs at the end of the day and I make off with many and make sauces with the excess. Not all stores do it though.
Waitrose aren’t the worst and are fairly consistent IME. I’d prefer them to be tastier though.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/cooks-ingredients-jalapeno-peppers/005664-2453-2454
If they all taste the same to you I’d just grab the biggest and cheapest jar! Catering supplies can’t be worse than OEP. Probably better.
thisI find the more expensive and smaller old El Paso jars etc to be soggier and less potent.
Why has no-one suggested that the idle OP simply grows his own yet? STW is slipping 😂
The fancy ones have a silent "J".
I'm having a serious #firstworldproblems moment and running low on the various mexican goodies I normally have in the house from Lupe Pintos in Edinburgh. Trying to convince myself that picking up some of their chorizo, salsa verde, possibility a mexican cola and most definitely some of their excellent beer selection is essential travel. Luckily, I still have a good supply of jarred chipotles so thoughts and prayers not needed at this time.
Pickle your own may of course be best. Ever tasted decent home-made pickled onions?
But first go and buy some Baxters ‘traditional’ pickled onions and if you prefer them you just saved yourself a lot of work. I’d rather drink vinegar straight from the bottle and eat a sloppy onion on the side than eat supermarket pickled onions. So it’s home made or nothing for me. Luckily found a corner shop in the next county which sells home made for a couple of quid. I just have to remember stock up for months. Lockdown hell.
The fancy ones have a silent “J”.
That's funny. Hilariously, I actually used to say ‘gel-APPeno’ to miscorrect my stupid friends who would pronounce it ‘jall-a-PEE-now’
Took me a few years to learn that you pronounce the ‘j’ as ‘h’. About another decade later I learned that is’t also ‘penyo’ not ‘peeno’.
Working on getting ‘duvet’, ‘Paris’ and ‘paella’ pronounced correctly by the time I’m 70. But tbh I’d prefer not to say any foreign words in British company. You just sound like a dick whether you get it right or wrong. Better to err on wrong tho 🤣
Why has no-one suggested that the idle OP simply grows his own yet? STW is slipping
Condescending reply: 😀
Because jalapeños are reletivley mild, and used more like a salad ingredient or a sandwich filler, rather than as seasoning you need to grow a lot of plants to have a decent amount of supplies.
Hotter verieties, Apache, for example, you only need to grow a couple of plants if that, and the dried or pickled fruits could keep you in supply for a year or more.
I normally rinse mine to get rid of the vinegar taste but as to the difference in cost...well different businesses have different cost bases and old El Paso is a recognised brand and brands carry value and premium. The point is you have a choice and if you don't value the Old El Paso brand enough to pay the premium then you have options.
But I've ditched Jalapeños. They have no flavour. I've transitioned onto decent chilli sauces. As much heat as you want and flavour too.
I just buy whatever is in the shop but they don't all taste the same. Problem is I can never remember which was the good one. The other problem is they have different heat. Chuck a handful in then see how it goes. I actually quite like the very mild ones because you can put them in more things for some subtle flavour. Maybe I need a spreadsheet 😎
But I’ve ditched Jalapeños. They have no flavour
No accounting for taste! Find that I like (especially fresh and roasted) jalapeños on account of their taste. Green, earthy, fresh with a bit of heat. Much like a bell pepper but more condensed and less watery. Great cooked on pizza and sublime pickled, hot and layered in a stack of hot cheesy nachos.
Can’t imagine the same could be said of sauces or hotter peppers (both of which I adore, but lets be honest, most sauces taste of heat, smoke and other ingredients - not so much the flavour of the fruit itself which tends to be used simply for heat and bulk. I say ‘most’ because have tried some that have a certain characteristic of a chilli fruit.
Serrano is similar to jalapeño but hotter, yet as with all once you get them in vinegar, garlic and smoke and spices then the taste isn’t so much about the fruit.
Like the taste of chipotle too, but it’s just a smoked (red) jalapeño.
Tastiest chilli dish hands down for me have been chilli verdes from various Mexican restaurants over the years. I think that the green gravy/sauce comes from fresh jalapeños and tomatillos. I could murder one now for breakfast tbh gaaaah!!
Working on getting ‘duvet’, ‘Paris’ and ‘paella
Easy:
Doo vay
Parry
Pie-Ee-Ah
I'm onto advanced pronunciation, currently struggling with Hawaii.
M&S chilli and cheese hot cross buns
Grabs car keys and face mask......
Serrano is similar to jalapeño but hotter, yet as with all once you get them in vinegar and smoke and spices then the taste isn’t so much about the fruit.
Depends how you eat them I guess. If you're just bunging them in a Fajita or a burrito with a load of other strong flavours then the tase of the fruit is lost anyway and the main point of the chilli is to add heat and maybe texture. The point with the decent chilli sauces is there is a variety so if you want smokey you can have it, if you want a simple chilli sauce that tastes of the chilli's you've got it. But can't say I've ever had a raw Jalapeño, so don't know what the fruit tastes like. I suspect once the've been pickled in cheap vinegar, even if you've washed them like I do, whatever the flavour of the fruit was is long gone.
M&S chilli and cheese hot cross buns
Grabs sick bag and Gaviscon!! 🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮
M&S chilli and cheese hot cross buns
Grabs car keys and face mask……
Pick up a pack of the rhubarb and custard version for dessert.....
Bloody hell, I better take a wheelbarrow MCTD 🙂
Just googled and found this might be of interest?
In the UK, we are still a little back to front with our approach to chilli. Yes, it’s a generalised statement and doesn’t apply to all but, from our experience, we tend to find that us Brits think about heat first & flavour second (if at all). Look at almost any other culture in the world where chillies have been a used for hundreds of generations and you’ll discover that chillies are used for their flavour first and heat second. The UK’s love of spice is still fledgling in comparison to many cultures so maybe we can be forgiven for still looking at the fiery fruit as something that will primarily impart heat. We are noticing a gradual turn in the tide but we’re not there yet. With this in mind, we’ve decided to list a few of our favourite chillies along with their respective flavour notes and without discussoing their heat too much…
https://www.cliftonchilliclub.com/the-flavour-of-chillies
i get mine from Costco, dont recall how much they cost but they come in jars that look like a prop from the borrowers!
you can pickle them (and other stuff like radish etc) from fresh in 10 mins, you might be loathe to go back to any of the soggy pre-pickled ones after trying that!But can’t say I’ve ever had a raw Jalapeño, so don’t know what the fruit tastes like. I suspect once the’ve been pickled in cheap vinegar, even if you’ve washed them like I do, whatever the flavour of the fruit was is long gone.
I pickle jalapenos myself as I find most of the ones that you buy in the supermarkets are not crunchy enough.
@p7eaven I've been grappling with this for years. I love the taste of chillis but I can only handle so much heat (which is a moderate amount, I'm no fairy). Chilli seems to be fetishised by men - a great many men who think they cook are really just claiming to make a 'mean chilli' which means chilli con carne that's just a bowl of pain they can show off about being able to eat. And invariably if they cooked it for me they'd 'tone down the heat' for me, and it'd just taste of chilli powder. And when I ask the recipe they say 'er, meat, tomatoes, beans and chillies'.
I've tried to make a more interesting flavourful recipe occasionally, and I've added a few things like cumin, chocolate, or beer, and had varying degrees of success. But ultimately I think it needs more low-heat chills for that fruity chilli deliciousness without the pain.
ultimately I think it needs more low-heat chilli for that fruity chilli deliciousness without the pain.
I like the heat (not in a macho way, I think it’s mild euphoria and a tingle of taste buds) but co-diners don’t so my chilli (non) carne recipe has a nice big fat bell pepper or two chopped up in it, with very little cayenne or whatever hot chili. Result = plenty of pepper (fruit) flavour but no heat. I later add dried chili flakes or powder to my (served) bowl of chilli to satisfy my own preference.
If attempting to cook traditional Mexican food (along with Indian it’s by far my favourite cuisine but authentic ingredients are more challenging) then the recipe book I have recommends dry-toasting (in pan) dried chiles (often all you can get in the UK) until they darken and then make soaking-water from them..
Last time I tried it was with ancho chiles and they added some flavour to a nice cooking sauce iirc. Anchos are so hot on my scale but ymmv. I do agree that (at least in the UK/US) the chilli sauce craze has just got a lot of people thinking that chili/chile peppers are about heat not flavour.
Last year I bought Mrs P a birthday feast from a local Mexican (national) cook who setup a lockdown delivery service. She (cook) was offering traditional home-cooked food and was soon oversubscribed.
We had three different dishes to taste and share, as well as some sides. The meals were completely delicious but I wouldn’t say there was any notable capsaicin heat in any of them. Negligible if any. What? Mexican food that isn’t mad hot? Is that sort of like British food that isn’t wrapped in pastry?
I just had a look at the book and this may be of use?
The book is Mexican Cooking by Roger Hicks, think I bought it in the 90s. It’s amusing to read that ‘jalapeños are ‘very hot indeed’. Which may go to show how the taste for crazy hot chili varieties have been driven by US commercial/social media interest/novelty value in recent decades?
Those ones from Tesco on the link above are the best I've found. They can sometimes be not very crunchy but of late they've been very hot (for Jalapenos).
and it’d just taste of chilli powder. And when I ask the recipe they say ‘er, meat, tomatoes, beans and chillies’.
People get confused with chili/chile powder and chilli powder. Chili/chile is the fruit(fresh, dried, powdered etc) while ‘chilli powder’ is usually * a blend for a dish of the same name.
https://www.southernliving.com/seasonings/spices/chile-powder
*note: to confuse the issue further you can get big bags of ‘red chilli powder’ from Asian supermarkets but they aren’t a blend of spices (and nothing to do with ‘chilli con carne’), they are just red powdered red hot chiles
A (Tex Mex)chilli con carne recipe often specifies ‘chilli powder’ and therefore any flavour is brand dependent. I can’t imagine your mates have sourced a particularly flavoursome brand of chilli powder? I don’t think I could come to think of it. Use freshly ground spices and make your own. Most UK brands just use cayenne pepper for the hest which is tasteless. The flavour in the powder isn’t in the cayenne - it’s the cumin, oregano etc in there.
I mix my own using dried cumin, dried oregano, smoked paprika and garlic salt/dried garlic. Note that I don’t add chili/cayenne powder/flakes to the blend. I’ll add that to the recipe separately depending on who is dining.
The nice fruity pepper taste can come from bell/sweet peppers in the recipe. If it’s just for me and I have some fresh hot peppers knocking about then I’ll happily bung those in whole or sliced, yet will still use diced bell pepper to round out the flavours.
Give your mates a proper Tex Mex recipe and enjoy!
https://www.mastercook.com/app/recipe/WebRecipeDetails?recipeId=12760643
Also this was a find:
My meat-loving mates love it and they hate veggie food normally
Pickle your own may of course be best. Ever tasted decent home-made pickled onions?
My mum does them. They make your head go like this:
I'm having a cheese and jalapeño pasty for my lunch 🙂
Fill yer boots, 3kg for a tenner...
https://www.mexgrocer.co.uk/brands/carey/carey-jalapeno-nacho-slices-28kg
Mexgrocer is fantastic for bulk dried chilis, btw.
Mexican night was last night - and jalapeños played their part 🙂
We had burritos, the meat was cooked in the slow cooker:
Ribs + pork cheeks, rubbed in paprika+oregano+garlic powder+ground cumin+pepper+salt (with a bit of oil to get the rub to stick).
Sliced onions + more garlic + sliced jalapeños
A can of full-fat coke (you could use beer here instead), poured carefully to avoid washing off the rub.
Cook for 8 hours on low, I gave it a mix at 4 hours but otherwise didn't touch it.
Then to accompany the meat:
Sliced avocado
Pico de gallo (tomato, onion, jalapeños (these three diced), coriander, lime juice, salt)
Grated cheese
Tortilla wraps.
All washed down with a beer or two.
Tesco's red jalapeno's same a bigginges (& Painey) Green ones, just riper ;D that size jar never seems to empty. Though I think I've got a jar of El Paso one's I grabbed so I wouldn't run out, be interested to see how they compare.
mattyfez
Same reason Heinz ketchup is more expensive than supermarket own brand or lesser known brands, I guess.
Quality is not nessesarily worse or better, you just paying brand tax.
Though I have moved away from red sauce, your so wrong, it's not even funny. Heniz ketchup is the best, no brand tax.
Vinnyeh 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Shame it’s bulk in a way, but those look like the ones I sometimes get from the salad bar and they can make a great sauce. Better still open can and then portion out in smaller jars. Give to friends as sauce or whole
*edit*
Anchos are not so hot on my scale but ymmv
‘Brand tax’
Pretty sure Old El Paso wasjust for a long time the only fish in the pond in the UK so the quality/taste was immaterial. I used to buy their canned refried beans but now have a convenient choice other than homemade, and it’s been a much better tasting and cost effective experience since the pond became more populous with brands such as Gran Luchito
See also: Napolina. Took me far too long to realise they were crap.
Also this was a find:
What do you use for "1/4 cup McCormick's Chili Powder"? The only McCormick I know was the partner of Hardcastle.
US recipes always pull this crap and it pees me right off. "BEST DAMN VEGAN BROWNIES! Ingredients: one pack of Dr Oetker's Vegan Brownie mix..."
Chilli Cheese toast recipe – this is mighty fine
just had this for dinner, sort of; swapped the chilli for a handfull of jalepinos, the spring onions for red and sacked off the egg. bang on.
Mexgrocer is awesome
These are good and available at supermarkets
I forgot to say earlier but do not try the discovery foods red jalapenos. I did some work for them once and they gave me a load. They're in some sort of sugar water and they're absolutely disgusting.
Has anyone mentioned candied Jalapeños?
Seriously good on pizzas.
https://haynesgourmet.com/shop/candied-jalapenos/
DIY?
(Just tailor the actual cayenne/chili powder component to preferred heat)
*Edit again, confusing because cayenne powder and chili powder are the same thing in the UK. ie powdered hot red peppers. Just remember in US the cayenne is normally the hotter of the two listed and adjust accordingly.
Aha. Ta.
I looked up the ingredients and it listed the not-chilli as "spices" so I was no nearer.
Dam I thought through our musings we had stumbled upon a new niche, i give you
The STW Artesian hand cut Jalapenos bathed in Anglesey sea salted brine
but it looks like Drac's Candied offer is pretty close
thanks for the Jalapenos thoughts