Hatch, New Mexico in the US is home to the greatest chile peppers in the world....the Hatch chile pepper. This pepper ranges from very mild on the heat scale to very hot. Each year, the Hatch Chile Festival comes to markets across the US. Boxes, displays and pepper roasters burst at the seams with these green and red beauties. As the season progresses, the character of the flavor changes and the color moves from green to red. Each cache of peppers yields subtle differences in flavor and character while all are wonderful and simply addictive...Hatch chile peppers might just be my drug of choice.
Today, I spent some time at Central Market in North Texas selecting peppers: hot, mild, fresh and roasted. I easily brought home 10 pounds....for this one trip. Trust me, there will be more trips to the market over the next couple of weeks.
At this point in the evening, I am prepping the peppers for cooking by soaking them in cold water with a special cleanser to get rid of any "nasties" that might be lurking on the peppers. I have several bunches of cilantro (someone, PLEASE make a perfume from this herb!!!), large, sweet onions, flour tortillas, cheese, chicken, beef, ground turkey, pork tenderloin and all the makings for cornbread. Tomorrow, I will make a gorgeous picadillo with which to stuff the peppers and will bake them with a light tomato based sauce infused with flavors from the Southwestern US. Other peppers will be stuffed with various other concoctions, of which I will post the recipes once they are tested.
OOOOO - plantains.....yup, I will need some of those too.
For tonite, dinner was hatch chile pesto spread on fresh, soft and warm Hatch chile flour tortillas.
So, it is back to the kitchen I go to finish prepping and begin cooking savory and sweet treats using this annual gift from the American Southwest.
In stead of "be still, my beating heart".....that old saying has morphed into, "be cool, my burning tongue"....
From the heart of my purple kitchen to you, have a great evening!!!
S.
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