Chili Cilantro Mint Popovers

After a day’s rest we are back to our baking marathon. This week my theme is savory bakes. For the first bake in this series are popovers. Popovers are light; hallow bakes made with egg batter. I baked my first popovers, rosemary popovers last fall for one of the baking groups. One of my group members made chili cilantro popovers and I wanted to try that flavor right away. I made them twice with chili cilantro mint before but could not take pictures. I made them again last month just for the sake of pictures. In fact these were my husband’s lunch when I went for the Vegan food festival with Mir & Pavani.

The recipe is similar to rosemary popovers; the only difference is I substituted rosemary with chili cilantro and mint. I particularly like this popover recipes as the popovers are hard on the outside and do not deflate immediately like the other popover recipe I tried for the bakeathon.

Photography Corner: The setup I used for these pictures is the same as the one I used for Chocolate Chunk Blondies.

Total Time: 50 – 60 minutes
Preparation: 25 minutes (includes preheating the oven, preheating takes 15 minutes)
Baking Time: 30 – 32 minutes
Yields: 9 – 11 mini popovers (I got 11) or 3 - 4 regular sized popovers

Ingredients:

1 extra Large Egg, at room temperature
½ cup Whole Milk (I used skim milk)
½ tbsp. Unsalted Butter, melted
½ cup All Purpose Flour
⅛ tsp. fine Kosher Salt (I used regular iodized salt)
1 – 2 small Green Chilies chopped
1 – 1 ½ tbsp. roughly chopped Cilantro
4-5 Mint Leaves or 1 – 1 ½ tbsp. roughly chopped
¾ tsp. Coarse Sea Salt (dash of salt on each batter filled popover cups)
1 tbsp. Butter, melted (this is to grease the pan)

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven after mixing the batter.
Melt butter in the microwave for 20 – 30 seconds until melted or melt it on stove stop.
Put cilantro, mint and green chilies in a food processor or a blender and roughly mince the herbs.
In a bowl whisk together egg, milk and butter until completely combined. I used an electric whisk. One can use a hand whisk.
Take flour and salt into a bowl and mix it. Gradually blend the flour to egg mixture and whisk until frothy.
Add minced herbs to the batter and whisk until it blends in. Keep it aside until the oven is heated. This will help the batter to settle in and the flavors to blend in to it.
Pre-heat the oven to 400 F. Put the empty popover pan in the oven and preheat the oven again to 450F. The oven should be 450F to bake the popovers.
While the oven is preheating, melt the butter to grease the pan.
Once the oven is heated to 450 F, pull out the empty popover pan and distribute the butter evenly in the popover cups. Butter will sizzle and might even burn, but that is ok.
Whisk the batter one more time to froth it up. Give it a good whisk.
Fill the cups halfway with batter. Sprinkle dash of sea salt in the top of the popovers. If using a regular size pan, sprinkle about pinch of salt.
Gently put the popover pan on a cookie sheet and place it on the middle rack of the preheated oven. The cookie sheet is to collect any spillage in case the popovers spill over. Bake for 15 – 17 minutes at 450 F until popovers begin to brown and rise. Do not open the oven until the popovers are baked. Once you open the oven, popovers will deflate. You can keep the oven light to see if the popovers are brown.
Reduce the temperature to 350 F and bake for another 15 minutes until popovers are brown and crisp. Again, do not open the oven door until popovers are baked; 15-17 minutes at 450 F and then for 15 minutes at 350 F.
Immediately remove from the pan and cool on a cooling rack or a plate. Leaving them in the pan will cause the bottoms to get wet from the butter.
Serve them right away when warm, fresh from the oven. If you make them ahead, warm them on a baking sheet at 250 F until warm and crisp, about 5 minutes. I served them at room temperature.

Note:

Use a muffin pan if you do not have a popover pan.
Popovers pop out differently and in shapes each time. If you see a weird looking popover, do not be disappointed.

This day in 2011: Hot & Sour Soup
This day i 2014: Chole Bhature