BBQ Recipes

As published in Heat & Smoke

These glorious chillies (or peppers) are a backbone ingredient of modern barbecue.

Ingredients:

• 12 green jalapeños
• cream cheese
• ham or cooked prawns
• dry cured streaky bacon

Method:

Buy a dozen of the largest jalapeños you can find and split them, from the top downwards, but leaving them joined at the bottom (stem) end with the stem attached.

Scrape out the seeds and white pith using a small spoon or the spoon end of a lobster pick. Go about this carefully and thoroughly as it is the seeds and pith that carry the excess heat in these chillies.

For the stuffing, mash some cream cheese at room temperature. Stud it with pretty much anything you like – finely chopped ham or cooked prawns perhaps. Then roll the finished cheese into bullet shapes to fit neatly into the split chillies, and squeeze them closed.

Take a thin rasher of dry cured streaky bacon for each chilli and carefully wrap it in a spiral. Some people skewer this in place and, if you do, use a small metal skewer rather than a wooden one as even soaked skewers catch fire.

Cook the poppers on a charcoal grill turning them carefully as the skin blisters. It is ready when the bacon starts to cook and the filling melts.

Looking for other Bob Hart recipes? See them all at Bob Hart barbecue recipes.

*Heat & Smoke by Bob Hart is available to purchase via HeatandSmoke.com. Also visit www.australianbarbecueacademy.com to find out how you can register for Bob’s private masterclasses (classes book out well in advance, so be quick).

**Photo credit Dean Cambray.