Chiles rellenos

Wikipedia provides this definition of the popular Mexican dish, chile relleno:

The chile relleno, literally “stuffed pepper”, is a dish of Mexican cuisine, consisting of a roasted fresh green Anaheim, poblano, or posilla chili pepper stuffed with a melting cheese, such queso Chijuajua or queso Oaxaca (traditionally), and/or picadillo meat made up of diced pork, raisins, and nuts, seasoned with canella meat, covered in an egg batter, and fried. It is often served in a tomato sauce. The type of sauce varies widely. There are also many versions in Mexico that use rehydrated dry chiles such as anchos or pasillas.

They said it more concisely and completely than I could have done. I googled “canella meat” and came up with references to it, but no explanation of what it actually is.

When we were shopping at Heinie’s produce market in Arvada, CO, we saw they had some beautiful Anaheim peppers. Rellenos leapt to mind. Until today I didn’t know that the word meant simply “stuffed.” Live and learn. I grew up being fed stuffed green bell peppers frequently. They were a very budget-conscious choice for a family of 7 with little money.

I’ve made stuffed peppers a number of times, and rellenos just a couple of times. I looked up a number of recipes and came away from that exercise understanding that you can stuff the Anaheims with just about anything. Certainly a Mexican mamacita (I think that’s a real word) wouldn’t find it necessary to open her copy of “La Alegría de la Cocina” (“Joy of Cooking”) to consult a recipe. She would use leftovers or find items at the local market she frequents every day of her life. This is the mindset that guided me yesterday.

I determined to use only leftovers, with the exception that I had no appropriate kind of cheese on hand and also wanted to include some tomatillos in my sauce. I bought a bag of 4 kinds of Mexican cheese blended together and 4 tomatillos. It was on sale and was the path of least resistance. I’ll put this down in typical recipe fashion, but bear one thing in mind. You won’t have the same leftovers I have. You’re on your own there. If your pantry doesn’t have dried Mexican peppers, just use some red pepper flakes or some cayenne.

The point I wish to make is one I refer to often in these posts. Shake yourself loose from rules in the kitchen. If you want a certain taste combo for your dinner, say shrimp and something, steak and something, chicken and something, just do it! You can cook absolutely any protein (i.e. meat, fish, or poultry) by using only salt, pepper and olive oil. Anything more is gravy (and gravy is good).

Also, as I haven’t mentioned it in a while, all my recipes are for two. The dogs have their own menu and believe me it does not include chili peppers.

Chiles rellenos
4 Anaheim peppers
4 oz. leftover pork medallions
1 oz. leftover corn relish
½ can leftover white beans
¾ can leftover tomato sauce
4 tomatillos, paper skins removed and chopped
½ red onion, diced
2 dry red peppers, finely chopped, seeds and all
salt
pepper
olive oil
¾ cup chicken stock
shredded or grated cheese (any kind that melts well)
leftover Greek yogurt
1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in a bit of water

I think it is a pain in the ass to have to char the chiles and peel off their skins, but I did it anyway. We never did this with our green bell peppers. I suspect their skins are more delicate and therefore more edible. Put the chiles on a baking sheet under the broiler until they char a good deal and the skin begins to crack. Then stuff them into a paper bag for a half hour.

The skins should come off quite easily. Carfully make a slit in one side of each chile starting just below the stem and stopping about 1/2 inch from the pointed bottom. Using your fingers, scrape loose the seeds and quickly rinse them out under cold water. I can’t emphasize enough how careful you must be not the tear the chiles while you do this.

Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a bowl, combine pork, corn relish, beans and a fair amount of cheese. Stuff the chiles with this mixture and place them in a glass baking dish.

In a skillet, heat some olive oil until very hot. Add the onion and tomatillos and saute until softened. Add tomato sauce, red pepper, chicken stock, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for a while. How long? Don’t know – just until it starts to taste like one entity as opposed to a collection of disparate ingredients as it will when you start it. Add the cornstarch and stir while it thickens to give the sauce a little body.

Pour the sauce over the stuffed peppers and top with a lot of cheese. Bake for about 30 minutes – until it is bubbling throughout and the cheese has begun to brown. Serve in wide heated bowls with more cheese and the yogurt as a garnish. Of course sour cream would do. Yogurt was what we had.


At first I thought of stuffing my chiles with a shrimp mixture. But shrimp and cheese, while eaten by a lot of people in this universe, just doesn’t sound quite right to me. If I had had chicken or steak leftover I would have used them, separately on in combination. I could have bought several Mexican cheeses and combined them. I could have just used one cheese, such as pepper jack. The on-sale bag I found served my purposes perfectly.

And you know what? I don’t know what I could have done to make this dish taste any better. Slightly different ingredients would have had an influence on the flavor but not on the overall quality. Try it, you’ll like it.

I Challenge You

I think I promised early on to post only when I have something special to share. Today I don’t. So I lied.

Instead, I’m going to share some thoughts. You can have your own epiphany in the kitchen. You don’t need to be a skilled cook to do so, either. Anyone reading this certainly has a cookbook or two on hand. Take a break from whatever you expect to be doing when you finish reading this. Go get one of those cookbooks…any one, it doesn’t matter which or what cuisine. Start reading the index in the back.

As soon as you see a recipe that sounds good to you (that is, you’d like to eat some of whatever it is right now), go to it. Make a list of any ingredients it calls for that you don’t have on hand. Before you go to the store to get them, think for a moment. Does the recipe call for lemon zest? Consider trying orange or lime instead. Does it call for bread crumbs and what you have is those Italian flavored ones? Throw them out and put Panko bread crumbs on your list. The “herbed” bread crumbs will hijack your recipe from the gitgo.

Maybe the recipe suggests fresh basil or thyme or oregano, your choice. Consider using two of them, or even all three in modest amounts. Are you supposed to use eggs? Consider using what I call “fake” eggs, the ones that come in the milk-sized cartons. They work perfectly well for most applications and spare you the angst of eating something with CHOLESTEROL in it. Besides, a few eggs a week is again considered part of a healthy diet.

Remember another thing: are you cooking for yourself or just two? Most recipes in cookbooks are for four or more. Do a little simple math and make what will get eaten, especially if you are one of those people who stick your leftovers in the fridge and ignore them for weeks at a time. You know who you are.

Do you get the drill here? You will make your life much more interesting by doing this exercise.

Here’s another way you could go about it. Think about your protein for today. There are a lot of possibilities: steak, lamb, myriad kinds of fish, shrimp, pork chops, chicken. You notice I’m not including the meats that require long cooking such as roasts. If you’re going to do this more or less on the spur of the moment, don’t scare yourself off before you even get started.

Was steak your choice? Does your supermarket have a sale bin for items that are about to pass there “best if used by” date? Check it out. I got a nice piece of sirloin this morning for 30% off. Even it had been a day or two past the date (which it wasn’t), that’s not a problem with a steak. For gosh sakes, fancy steak houses age the stuff for days or weeks.

Do not, I repeat, do not buy ground meat. The possibility of contamination is far greater than it is with an intact hunk of meat. You want a burger? Buy a piece of chuck steak and cut it into 1” cubes. Stick it in the food processor and pulse it until it breaks up into burger texture. If you’re really concerned about safety, drop that steak into a pot of boiling water for just 30 seconds before you cut it into cubes. E coli can only exist on the outside of a hunk of meat. Now you can make a burger as rare as you want at no risk.

You can make your coming repast easy by being expedient. Buy a head of your favorite kind of lettuce and one additional item, a carrot, a stalk of celery, a bunch of radishes, some or all of the above. Lettuce and one or two additions will make a perfectly satisfying salad. Dressing? Go ahead, buy a bottle. Make this dinner fun.

Add a starch to your list, or don’t. It’s fun and easy to cook some orzo pasta and dress it with butter (ok, or margarine), some salt and pepper and maybe a little parmesan or romano cheese. DO NOT, I repeat (in a more gentle tone of voice), do not buy one of those green cylinders of parmesan cheese. That stuff really sucks. Far better is to get a tub of pre-shredded cheese if you don’t feel like going for a wedge of the real stuff.

Don’t want a starch? Maybe for you the salad and steak or burger are enough. So be it. However, if you want to add a vegetable to the menu, do not (I kept my voice down this time) buy canned veggies, with a couple of exceptions. A side of white or black beans with just some lemon juice and olive oil and salt and pepper can be fun. Buy a can. Do not buy: canned corn, peas, asparagus, or green beans. Canned beets are more than ok. I even like canned potatoes. They have a flavor all their own, but one I enjoy.

Instead of the canned foods section, you’ll do much better with any vegetable in the freezer section (although not as good as fresh veggies). Do not buy frozen green beans, carrots, asparagus, or corn. Peas are just fine, as is frozen corn, black-eyed peas, artichokes, and a few others I’m just not remembering at the moment.

So are you saying now that I promised to make this easy and I’m going on and on and complicating everything. Bullshit. I’m just giving you a method, a plan of attack, a raison d’etre culinarily speaking. Not for tomorrow (although that would be fine if you need more planning time or your main squeeze is taking you out tonight), but for today – right now.

Make a list. Need I say it again? Make a list! I guarantee that if you don’t you will forget something.

Get your ass out the door to your favorite market and buy those things you decided you want and need.

When you get home, slavishly follow that recipe you found. If you have “Joy of Cooking” you’ll find that the steps are very clearly laid out. Just follow them.

I hope you get to share this meal with someone. It’s good for your health to be with friends or loved ones (or friends who are loved ones) across the dinner table. Enjoy yourself.

Oh yeah, on the way home from the supermarket stop at a reputable liquor store. Tell the people there what you’re going to cook and whether you want red or white wine (either one can be drunk with anything). If what you want is beer, get your favorite kind.

Ok, that’s it. My work is done here.

Corned beef

Not much to contribute today. I did two small things.

1) I poached a pound of salmon in a court bouillon of my own making. I used homemade chicken stock, white wine, black peppercorns, and a no-salt seasoning that someone gave us recently. All it takes is to bring the stuff to a boil and let it simmer a few minutes. Then you add the salmon and let it simmer slowly. It took 5 minutes for the smaller sides of the salmon filet, and about 10 minutes for the thicker portions.

2) I began an experiment using "curing" mixes I have. I've made homemade ham and homemade "smoked" turkey legs with them. I put the quotes around smoked because the way I got the legs to have a smoky flavor was to add a bit of liquid smoke when they went into the oven after 4 days of soaking in the cure.

Anyhow, I got the idea to make corned beef out of something other than brisket: flatiron steak. I gather that meat processors have only in recent years found a way to mechanically separate the flatiron steak from the part of the cow that is where "chuck" comes from. Of the four common cuts (flank, hangar, flatiron and brisket), the flatiron is the most tender. So...I followed a recipe I found on-line and have the steak curing for the next 5 days. I see no reason why it shouldn't turn out quite well. I'll let you know.

Peter made a salmon and new potato salad which will be lunch today. Tonight we will have a very special thing I recently learned how to make: gravlax (cured salmon). I promised only to share the innovative things I do. My gravlax is made from a recipe in "Joy of Cooking," in case you're interested in trying it. It is extremely easy and extremely worthwhile if you are someone who like lox as much as I do.