Jalapeño Bombs
(with Useless Healthy Tweaking)

This recipe is from last week's Sunday Daily News by chef Brett Reichler.  I changed it up some, used some of my own home made ingredients that I had stored away and exercised some healthy tweaking (which is almost not worth mentioning as this is a fried treat). Regardless, it's nice to cut those fatty coroners where you can.

I'm also going to compare results between the panko-inspired original direction of his recipe with my own breadcrumb direction.

Ingredients:
1 cup pickled jalapeños (canned-drained)
1/3 cup chipotle peppers in adobo (canned-drained of adobo)
1/2 cup green chiles, diced (canned)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream reduced-fat sour cream
1 cup cream cheese 1 1/2 cups fat-free cream cheese
6 cups vegetable oil -or- however much re-used oil you need to fill a mini deep fryer
1/4 cup flour (plus salt and pepper)
2 large eggs 1 large egg and 1 egg white
1 tablespoon buttermilk  *my cheat
1/4 cup panko-style breadcrumbs -or-  whole wheat breadcrumbs saved from this recipe.


First, make room in your freezer then drain the liquid from jalapeños and add them to a food processor with the chipotles.  Pulse for a few seconds.  Add the mixture to the chiles, cheddar, sour cream and cream cheese and mix well.

With an ice cream scoop or a spoon, dole out balls around the size of a large gumball or a falafel onto cookie sheets.  This is where I had to adjust the original recipe...the mixture, as was originally intended, was too wet to make a ball so I added another 1/2 cup of cream cheese to thicken it some.  It helped a little, but not enough BUT as the next step had called for freezing the balls for at least an hour hour, I used that to my advantage.....

While I was timing my curdling milk*, I allowed the first part of the freezing to serve as a hardening step.  After 15 minutes, the globs were hard enough to manipulate into better balls.  Follow this tip and throw back in freezer for at least an hour. (I froze over night because I got distracted and didn't finish the recipe--I know, I know.  Distracted.  Shocked Face.) Prep your frying apparatus (either heating your fryer or a pan of oil to 375°) and 3 bowls (one each for your flour, (beaten) eggs and panko/breadcrumbs) toward the end of the hour.

Roll your frozen balls into the flour first followed by the egg and finally the panko/breadcrumbs and fry 3 or 4 at a time.  Dry on a paper towel and allow to cool before serving.


Notes:

This recipe was not as easy as the way it was written.  I had to add some steps to get my desired  results.  I would like to try it again with other ingredients too.

Tweaks:
I swapped the cheddar, cream cheese and sour cream for lower fat versions.
I used (as a challenge) my own breadcrumbs.
I add more cream cheese for thickness of mixture.
I add a step to re-roll the mix into balls.
I skipped (nay: forgot to use) the buttermilk substitute

Cheats:

*1 cup whole milk + 1 tablespoon lemon yields buttermilk substitute after it has had a chance to curdle (about 15mins).
I used pre-existing breadcrumbs instead of making new ones.

Verdict: Success

Neighbor-worthy. 

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