Chiles rellenos

These are stuffed chiles, a recipe I got from Daisy Martinez. I’m working on doing part of it ahead of time. If you use the big pasilla chiles, then it’s a main course. If you use Anaheim chiles instead, you’ll only need half the amount of sofrito and you can accompany them with an enchilada or two.

I’ve made this “green” before by replacing the tomate paste with a tin of diced green chiles and cooked it in green enchilada sauce. It still needs about 1 little tin of tomato sauce to pick up the flavors a bit, but that won’t noticeably effect the “greenness” of the dish.

Yield

Serves 12.

Ingredients

  2 cups sofrito
  1 can tomato paste
  salt
  pepper
  1 lb ground pork
 
  12 poblano or pasilla chiles, whole
 
  1 egg
  ¾ cup beer
  ¼ tsp baking powder
  1 cup all purpose flour
 
  2 cans tomato sauce
  1 cup chicken stock
  chili powder (chili powder is an American thing)
  epizote (not crucial)
  1 lb Monterrey Jack cheese

Preparation

1. Reduce sofrito preparation in a skillet, add tomato paste, salt, pepper and ground pork. Cook until pork no longer red. Remove from heat and cool.

2. Remove skins from chiles (burn them off, etc.—your own technique). Cut as small as possible slit into each chile, clean out seeds and devein. Stuff with the previous, cooled preparation.

At this point, ingredients can be held in the refrigerator until the next day.

3. Prepare batter by beating one egg and wisking in the beer, the baking powder and the flour. Dip each stuffed chile and then fry in hot canola oil just until brown.

4. Cover bottom of baking dish with a reduction of tomato sauce and chicken stock with chili powder and epizote. Place stuffed peppers in coating each in sauce (roll it in the sauce). Cover with jack cheese. Put into 350° oven for about 20 minutes to warm and melt cheese.