Wandering through the farmer’s market yesterday, Jessica and I were discussing whether or not grapes were in the berry family. The answer is yes. If you didn’t already know Jessica loves berries. Then, as if the universe was calling to us a moment later we found ourselves in front of a beautiful stand of chili peppers (one of MY favorite types of berries). They had a huge selection of Pennsylvania-grown chilis, including some Pequins — yum. We bought five and home we went for me to start cooking.
Pequins are supposedly 7-8 times spicier than jalapenos. However, they seem to be sweeter and are much more flavorful. Interestingly, just yesterday I was discussing with Marcos about how sweeter peppers seem to make the heat much more tolerable. This sauce is perfect for even for a non-pepper-lover.
I was inspired by the sauce at Mexicana Mama Centro and felt I could do a bit better. Whoa did I! Following Jessica’s advice, I tried to keep an accurate recipe this time. Let’s see how I did…
Pequin Pepper Sauce
~makes roughly 1/2 cup
Ingredients
- 5 Pequin Chilis
- 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tablespoon of great tasting Honey
- 1 teaspoon Onion Powder
- 5 Garlic Cloves, roughly chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt + extra to season with
- 1/4 teaspoon Mixed Peppercorns (or just black, if that’s what you have)
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Cumin Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Cayenne Pepper Powder
- 2 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions
- Fire roast the chilis on a grill. (We usually do it on the burners but these were too small and would fall through.)
As they are roasting, put the vinegar, honey, and onion powder in a blender and spin it once. Let the onion powder dissolve.
- Mash the garlic, 1/4 tsp. kosher salt, and peppercorns with a morter and pestle. If you don’t have one, you could do this in the blender, but break the pepper first. Add to the blender.
- Toast the cumin and cayenne in a dry pan for 6-8 minutes, until aromatic. Don’t burn. Add to blender.
- When your chilis are roasted, remove the stem, seeds, and skin, roughly chop them and add to the blender.
- Run the blender on medium for 1-2 minutes, to thoroughly combine ingredients. Use a spatula (or spoon) to scrape down sides. While running, slowly drizzle first tablespoon oil. Turn off and scrape down sides. Repeat for remaining oil. Taste for flavor, add additional salt as necessary.
Jessica was wowed (which means I got kisses, sweet deal). It tasted damn good. Right off the bat, I made a turkey burger, toasted a bun, and slathered it with the sauce. It was amazing!
Jars of this sauce would make a WONDERFUL holiday gift to your loyal foodmayhem readers. Just an idea!
This sauce sounds incredible. It would be great on grilled flank steak or even with a side of beans.
Bill G, I was telling Lon that he should jar it and sell it!
Manger la ville, yum, we have a bit more and flank steak sounds great.
Looks like a great condiment, but…I don’t think those are piquins. Piquins are very, very small peppers, and would’ve fallen through the grates on your grill.
Bradley, thanks for the comment… you might be right! To be frank, I’m not sure. The stand in the farmer’s market only sold peppers, and the clerk told us they were piquins. That said, amazingly, I can not confirm online or not. I agree that all the other piquins seem to be the tiny kind, perhaps this is some related variety? Or perhaps the clerk was just wrong?
I tried to figure out what other chili variety these might be, but I can’t find them.
If anyone knows for sure, please reach out!
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Those are not piquins. Piquins are about the size of a pea.
Mike, I think someone else has commented on that too. That’s what the vendor (that only sells peppers) told us but maybe they are wrong. That would be sad as I want to know what this pepper is then!
I was already doing some research (which is what led me to this page) so it was no chore to track down a few possibilities for you, as far as what those actually are — because they’re definitely not pequins.
My first instinct is that these are jalapenos, which turn red as they ripen. When peppers ripen they tend to loose heat and gain sweetness. Perhaps this shifty gentleman was trying to offload widely available peppers on rubes by calling them something more exotic and unlikely to be found in the North East. Only the green stage tends be commercially available en masse for obvious reasons.
Two other peppers that closely resemble the photo, but tend to be a bit hotter than jalapenos are:
The Santa Fe Grande; Which you are unlikely to find out that way, or;
The Fresno; again unlikely.
Try snagging some red jalapenos, whip up another batch, and see how it comes out.
Thanks so much Clay. They seem kind of large for jalapenos also don’t they?
There are varieties of jalapenos that do grow that large, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s exactly what these are. They look delicious!
I’m fairly sure those are red pasillas. That would also explain the sweetness and low piquancy.
They are definitely too large to be pequins.
I found this recipe as I was given a nice amount of Pequin peppers from a coworker whose grandmother has been tending to a few bushes of Pequins in Metarie,LA for about 30 years.
They are quite hot, and very few are bigger than an average jellybean.They are much darker red, and show almost none of the surface wrinkles commonly found with fruit with far more septum inside.
Looks like a nice recipe, but you’d probably want to use about 50 true Pequins to make it .
Thanks for the recipe, I’ll give it a try 🙂
They do look like ripe jalopenos.
Pequins or piquins are teeny and not sweet at all.
You can usually find dried ones at mexican grocery stores.
Looks like a good sauce though!
Those are Ancho peppers which are Poblanos which have turned red. Pequins are the size of a pencil eraser and 10 times hotter than a jalapeño.