Stuffed chili peppers

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 6 large chili peppers, fresh
• 100 g natural cream cheese
• 80 g bacon slices
• 30 g ham, diced
• 1 small onion(s)
• e.g. butter
• salt and pepper
• Paprika powder

Instructions

Working time approx. 10 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 15 minutes; Total time approx. 25 minutes

Bacon-wrapped chili peppers with cream cheese filling

Wash the chili peppers thoroughly, but don’t remove the stems. Make a T-shaped cut in the peppers and carefully remove the cores and seeds. Peel and finely dice the onion. Sauté with a little butter and the diced ham. Mix the onion and ham mixture with the cream cheese, pepper, and a pinch of paprika. Season with salt. Fill the peppers with the cheese mixture. Then wrap each pepper with a strip of bacon. If necessary, secure everything with a toothpick so it doesn’t fall apart and you can touch the hot peppers later. I baked everything at 190°C with fan and grill until the bacon was nice and crispy. This takes about 15 minutes. If you can’t use the grill function, you may have to leave the peppers in the oven a little longer. Any larger variety is suitable, such as jalapenos. Mine were home-grown. Chili is like peppers: the green ones are unripe and therefore have less flavor than the red ones. Since the cream cheese largely neutralizes the heat, I added a splash of fresh cayenne pepper (I like spicy food). If you’ve never worked with fresh chilies before, you should wear disposable gloves or at least wash your hands thoroughly afterward, although that doesn’t help much (don’t rub it through your eyes!).