I’ve noticed jalapeno use increasing a lot in restaurants over the last couple of decades. While it was once only used in Mexican foods, now you can find jalapenos in all kinds of cuisine, and it really works well in a lot of them. Examples:
Pizza - jalapenos are great on pizza. They are a must on a multi-meat pizza, but also are great with just pepperoni. Sometimes, if my coupon only allows one topping, I’ll get a jalapeno and cheese pizza. Delicious!
Hamburgers - Sonic has been offering jalapenos on their burgers for a long while. Whataburger has recently started offering grilled jalapenos on theirs. Jalapenos work great on hamburgers, though I’ll usually order “No Pickles” as that can be just a little too much tartness.
Chinese Food - Still not sure how I feel about this. In the last few years I’ve seen some local restaurants offering jalapeno dishes, usually Jalapeno Chicken. Unfortunately, these dishes tend to be rather bland.
Armadillo Eggs - way back in the 1980s a meat market called “Reams” offered what they called Armadillo Eggs - essentially, jalapenos stuffed with seasoned chicken and breaded. I’ve never found anything as good anywhere else - most places that offer stuffed jalapenos stuff them with cheese, and those that do use chicken use very bland chicken.
Does anyone know of other examples of jalapenos used well outside of Mexican food?
My local german sausage maker produces a lovely jalapeno summer sausage, and ground up, it makes a wonderful pizza topping, a glorious addition to a spaghetti bolognese-style sauce, and sliced makes an excellent ingredient in many sandwiches.
Heh. Last week I bought a jar of olivepeño bruschetta, a mixture of green olives and jalapeños. It’s quite tasty on a ham and provolone panini.
Another fave of mine has been jalapeño bagels. Excellent with cream cheese.
FWIW, I’ve been getting jalapeños added to my burgers at Whataburger for at least 20 years. Granted, they haven’t been grilled.
ETA: similar to Armadillo eggs, a smokehouse in Dallas called Hard Eight has Brush Poppers. They’re jalapeños and turkey wrapped with bacon and mesquite smoked. Damned yummy!
Speaking as one whose taste buds have come to expect them, that would be pretty much everything, though I’ve yet to try my jalapeno jelly with peanut butter on English muffins, mostly because I don’t remember where I put it.
I’ve made a pretty tasty cocktail with rum, guava juice, lime juice and diced jalapeno. Good for the summertime. Spicy and sweet. Makes you wanna slap someone.
Get yourself some nice jumbo shrimp, some jalapenos that have been cored and sliced long ways (think cut like green peppers) and some proscuitto. Grill the shrimp, and when they’re done bind the jalapeno slice to them by wrapping the proscuitto around and give them a few more second on the grill to crisp up.
Serve on a bed of chili-mayo coleslaw and any dipping sauce you might desire.