Firecracker Fruit Cheese Poppers

Written by Zuppe

Hello all Solarians! Ready to start planning a full course but don’t know where and how to start? Fortunately for you, we have the perfect beginner's recipe for a classic starter dish using Solaria’s own Firecracker Fruit, which are quite popular already with all of our fellow foodies out here. The spiciness of the firecracker fruit pairs quite well with cream cheese topping and is baked to a perfect crispy top making this a satisfying treat to munch on while waiting for the rest of your awesome dinner to come. So sit right down and hold yourself proper, here's the recipe for the Firecracker fruit cheese popper.                                                                                      

Prep: 25 min. + Bake: 10 mins + extra 25 mins / Makes 20 servings

Ingredients:

✦ 12 whole Firecracker Fruits
(Substitute: 12 whole Jalapeños)

✦ Cream Cheese: 12 Ounces

✦ Shredded Cheddar: 8 Ounces

✦ Bacon Bits: 1 Tablespoon

✦ Whole Milk: 1 Cup

✦ All Purpose Flower: 1 Cup

✦ Bread Crumbs: 1 Cup

✦ Oil for frying: 2 Quartz

Step one: Prep your firecracker fruit

It’s highly recommended that the fruit you use is at its freshest. Best used when obtained the same day as bought. Not that it would be worse with the extra days, but you want the popper to be crunchy enough to slice that knife through it to prevent the fruit from losing its spices and flavor. You’re going to want to wash your fruit under cold water before prepping to get rid of any dirty or friendelion fluff that may have accumulated during transit to your kitchen. If you hear a slight giggle, ignore it. It’s likely a friendelion pixie waiting to steal your firecracker fruit. Always be wary of pixies while prepping, being vigilant is of utmost importance during prep time.

After cleansing, you’re going to want to chop off any stems from the fruit lest you don’t want firecracker sprouts making a nest in your tummy a bit later. After ‘destemming’ the fruit, you’ll want to slice the fruit in half from top to bottom, cutting the fruit into two halves. You’re going to want to do this to all of the fruit you have available. After slicing the fruit evenly, you’ll want to take a spoon and scoop out any seeds that may linger inside. Seeds may add to the spice factor of the fruit, but we want the popper to be less spicy and more flavorful for this appetizer. Lowering the spice factor also heightens the chance of pixies not stealing your poppers later on, as Pixies love spicy poppers.

After gutting the fruit of its seeds, you’ll want to put the shells on a paper towel and move on to the next step of the recipe!

Step two: Prep your cheese filling

You’ll want to get a semi-large bowl, not big enough to fit an adult-sized Dromedairy, but also not too small that it barely feeds your pet rock named ‘king rocky the Twelfth’. A medium-sized bowl, perhaps twice the size of a large soup bowl would be perfect for this step in the recipe. You’re going to mix in the cream cheese, shredded cheddar and bacon bits into the bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed together. If you’re plain bad at mixing and have the ability to pull some rather marvellous inventions from beyond the rifts, it’s highly recommended to try to use what has been described as a 'hand mixer.' You can also try a 'stand mixer', but that's not as recommended, as stand mixers tend to anger the friendelions. How does one anger the friendly friendelions? We don’t know either. But it happened one day. And we prevent it since the great friendelion war...

Step three: Fill your poppers

Once you mix together the cheesy goods, you’re going to want to stuff the poppers full of that filling as soon as possible, maybe enlist the help of friends or family to get the process going. If alone, best if prepped while listening to the sweet tunes of that cool new band group, ‘The Mana-beat Huntresses’. After all, their music has recently come out on Floppystones. Hard rock is a good deterrent for any unlawful pixie magic in your prep work, so listening to it prevents any ‘accidents’ that may happen on the job. To make frying easier later on, you can take the filled poppers and freeze them for a few hours to make the poppers easier to bread and fry on top of your stove, but if you want to fry your poppers right after prep and be a rebel, feel free to do so! Once your poppers are all filled and ready, we can move on to the next step of the recipe.

Step four: bread and fry your poppers

Two ways you can go about this step! If you choose to freeze these poppers, you can mix together the milk and the flour to make a batter similar to pancake batter that you can dip the poppers in order to deep fry in a way reminiscent of deep-fried fair food.

If you want to go the second route where you did not freeze the poppers, you’re going to want to separate the milk, bread crumbs, and flour into three separate bowls. Dip your stuffed poppers into the milk first, then in the flour. Make sure the poppers are well coated in both! Transfer the coated poppers to a drying plate and let sit for about ten minutes. In those ten minutes, listen to some tunes! Paint a picture. Enjoy the outdoors! Everyone needs to have somewhat of a break. But never leave those poppers out of your sight. Else you want fickle creatures to snatch up your foodie wonders.

Once the ten long minutes are up, you’re going to dip those poppers in milk once again, coating thoroughly, then roll in the bread crumbs once more. Make sure the poppers are completely coated then once finished, let them dry on the drying plate. After this step is finished, we go on to the next step, frying. Heat oil in a large skillet to 365 F (alt: 180 C). Working on batches, if necessary, deep fry the poppers until golden brown between 2 and 3 minutes. Remove the poppers once fried nicely in the skillet and transfer to drain on a paper towel.

Step five: Plate and serve

Just as the step says! Your poppers are 100% ready to be plated and served as the first course of this four-course meal we have set for everyone. These firecracker fruit poppers are served with creamy cool ranch dipping sauce or are quite nice by themselves with a subtle crunch and a ghost of a heat that runs in the back of your taste buds. The cream cheese cools the poppers down significantly and the bacon bits give a savoury undertaste that teases your appetite just enough to anticipate the meals coming ahead. Keep an eye out for the next meals that we will be running through in this series of Traditional Recipes of Solaria!

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