Mystery Ingredient Monday: Jalapeños

Photo by protoflux

Thanks for playing along again this week! I thought we'd take things a more savory route this week. And then I was overwhelmed with the myriad of options for the ingredient I chose. Full disclosure: this baby likes spicier food than I normally do; my brothers will be so proud. 

In my hunt for the perfect jalapeño recipe, I rediscovered a blog I had forgotten: The Homesick Texan which is a delightful treasure box of Texas recipes from church social casseroles, to restaurant re-creations and the geographic nuances of Tex-Mex cooking; San Antonio's Puffy Tacos are featured, and so are Houston's Tacos al Carbon. You get the idea. Anyway, I would only trust the Homesick Texan when it came to finding a recipe to imitate Goode Co. BBQ's famous jalapeño-cheese bread.

Instead of serving brisket with the ubiquitous Mrs. Baird's white bread, the restaurant makes their own and it is delicious. I wish they had restaurants outside of Houston so you could enjoy it. One year for Christmas, I sent my parents a brisket from them. Anyway, this is what the bread looks like:

Cheesy, mildly spicy delicious, source

I followed her directions exactly and in hindsight I would only change one thing. I'd probably divide it up into two bread pans. I had to bake it about 20 minutes longer to get it up to temperature (bread is done at 190 degrees) and it was spilling over the sides, which made it kind of hard to get out the pan, the loaf almost separated on my first try.

And just what are two people going to do with all this bread? Well, Goode Co. BBQ serves it with brisket, but last night, we made patty melts.

And later on this week, we're going to make jalapeño cheddar grilled cheeses, and if there's any left over, then we'll make jalapeño-cheddar french toast. 

The patty melts and all these future dishes were/will be greatly improved by Mark's contribution to MIM. Yup, this week he participated too, and it was another TX restaurant recreation. Behold:

Chuy's Jalapeño cream sauce. 

Chuy's are a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants sprinkled throughout the south, but they started in Houston. This sauce is what your server brings out alongside the fresh tomato salsa and the warm tortilla chips. It's basically creamy ranch dressing mixed with chilis and jalapeños. It took the place of mayo on our burgers last night, will be the sauce when we make french toast, and we've stocked our arsenal with chips for dipping as well.

Super easy to make, you dump everything in the blender. The longer you refrigerate it afterwards, the more the flavors develop, and the spicier it gets. It uses canned jalapeños and if your grocery store gives you the option, go with the mild. The medium were a little much right out of the blender so I can only imagine what the spice level will be today. 

So that was jalapeños at the Bazin homestead, what about yours? The link-up is below. Go visit Tasha and Jessica to see how they featured they mystery ingredient. Jessica is unveiling next week's ingredient, so be sure to check it out. If you want to play along but don't have a blog, instagram or tweet it #mysteryingredient, or tag us in a facebook post about your dish so we can marvel your creativity. Also, I'm going out on a limb to say that if you're dying to see a certain ingredient featured, go ahead and send one of us an email, we just might take you up on your suggestion!

Thanks for all the love on my last post, it was such a joy to be sharing such wonderful news!