Daddy's Dust of Death

One of the difficulties of creating recipes out of what I cook is finding substitutes for unique ingredients. A prime example is Daddy's Dust of Death, which is a homemade smoked chili seasoning my husband, Scott, makes. The girls named it Daddy's Dust of Death when they were little and had lower tolerance for spicy.

Scott makes a batch of this every summer, when the peppers and chilis at the Farmer's Market are at their peak. There is no really set in stone recipe, but the essentials typically involve fresh dark green pablonas and red, ripe jalapenos. A ration of probably five pablonas to one jalapeno is about right. A batch at our house requires at least thirty pablonas and six jalapenos.

Cut and discard the stem ends of the chilis; cut fruits in half. Remove seeds, but you don't have to remove all the rib. Leave to dry for a day or two, cut-side down, to flatten a bit. On the third day or so, heat up a smoker using fruitwood or hickory for smoke. Smoke the chilis for 45 minutes to an hour, til they are quite dark and rather crispy. Remove from the smoker and cool.

If the chilis are still moist at all, put them in a dehydrator for a few hours, until they are quite dry. Grind to powder in a spice grinder and place resulting powder in an airtight jar for storage.

This is excellent on anything that benefits from paprika, but the smokiness adds a much fuller dimension than that obtained using any commercial product I've found. If you have the equipment, this is well worth the effort.