Chiles En Nogada--A Chile Relleno of a Different Color, Not To Mention Taste

We’ve all had traditional chiles rellenos.  As a matter of fact, I had one for dinner tonight, in a combo #23 (along with a deliciously greasy shredded beef taco, cheese enchilada and of course, rice and beans) from Super Mex, the local chain Mexican dive.  Traditional chiles rellenos are usually a mild green chile (usually a poblano or Anaheim) which are roasted, peeled and seeded and stuffed with a mild, melting cheese.  In the US, it’s usually a Monterey Jack or mild Cheddar.  In Mexico, it’s typically queso Chihuahua or queso Oaxaca, both of which are mild, white and very amenable to melting into pools of gooey goodness.  The stuffed chile is then dipped in an egg batter and shallow-fried.  When nice and puffy and golden brown, the chile relleno is removed from the pan, and dressed with a mild red chile sauce.  Properly made, a chile relleno is a thing of beauty.  Poorly made, well, it’s a poorly made disaster.

We’ll make traditional chiles rellenos eventually, because even though I got a good fix tonight courtesy of Super Mex (still burping good salsa burps too…..), the chile relleno fix doesn’t last too long, and I’ll get to craving another hit pretty quickly.  And mine are pretty damned good and close to authentic.  Especially for a Polish/Norwegian girl from South Chicago.

But now we’re talking about a different kind of a chile relleno.  Technically, “chile relleno” translates literally as “stuffed chile”.  So, chiles en nogada are a form of chiles rellenos.  But they are as far from what you’ll find in Super Mex combo #23 as a beautiful Maryland blue crab cake is from a “Krab patty” made with that chopped, pressed and dyed faux “krab”.  OK….bad analogy….the chiles rellenos in combo #23 are actually really GOOD.  “Krab patties” are never, ever, really good, or even passable.  But you get the drift.

This is a relleno like you’ve never “relleno-ed” before.  Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

IT'S TACO TIME !

¡ Hola amigos !  And that, sadly, is about the extent of what my sad little brain retains from many, many years of high school and college Spanish lessons.

That and “¿ donde esta el baño ?”, which is frankly just as important of a phrase.  Perhaps even more so…

But, I digress, as always.  This, however, may be the earliest digression yet.  No, apparently that tendency of mine didn't go away during my hiatus.

Tomorrow (or today, depending upon where you are and when you’re reading this) is Cinco de Mayo.  Which, although it is most likely, what I call a “faux-li-day” or a contrived holiday (see other examples, St. Patrick’s Day, Groundhog’s Day, Sweetest Day, and darest I say…Halloween), is still however, in the grand tradition of holidays, faux or real, an excellent excuse for some “good eats” (to borrow a phrase, thanks AB).  Yikes.  THAT sentence structure even hurt MY brain…..let’s carry on, shall we, and try to recover from that horror ?

For dinner tomorrow, I’m planning on making a very traditional Mexican dish that features all the colors of the Mexican flag, which of course I’ll share with all ya’ll in a bit.  But for immediate inspiration, not to mention satisfaction, here’s a suggestion for the star of your particular fiesta.  I made these earlier this week, and they were a) easy and b) tasty, which, in my book, makes the recipe a winner.  Even throwing together some refried black beans, salsa and guacamole from scratch didn’t add to the stress/effort level all that much.

So, let’s make some tacos, shall we?

My Big, Fat Mexican Dinner

A few weeks back, I did a belated birthday dinner for one of my closest friends.  When I have friends over, it’s usually ALWAYS cook’s choice.  Its my chance to try out new stuff, revisit old favorites, play with new techniques and flavors and, most especially, make those*big ticket* high yield dishes like stews and braises and baked pastas and so on that I normally don’t make just for myself.  That pesty leftover issue, you know (plus the fact I don’t want to have dogs that weigh 300 pounds, because *THEY* would gladly relieve me of my leftover burden).

That changes for Birthday Dinners.  If I’m cooking for you for your birthday, you get to choose the entire menu.  Them’s the rules.  It’s your day, it’s all about you, not me (for once, because usually it IS all about me, all the time, which probably explains a lot, actually…).  Or, when it’s not all about me, it’s all about Rosie.  That Princess thing she’s got goin’ on.  Unless it's your birthday, then it's all about you.  Clear?

So, when presented with the “what do you want me to cook for you for your birthday?” question, Lupe chose Mexican.  Yes, Lupe.  Yes, she’s Mexican.  Talk about performance anxiety !

When I said, “anything in particular…” she said no, but Mexican was it.  OK, so the rules bent a bit, since I still got to choose the particulars.  We were all happy.  I got to play; Lupe got what she wanted for her celebratory feast.

What shook out was pretty damned good, too, especially for a Polish girl from Chicago.  We had carnitas, with two homemade salsas, homemade refried beans, red rice and homemade corn tortillas.  For dessert, we veered away a bit  (OK, a LOT) from Mexico, because I was looking for something light and tangy, since I figured the meal would be a bit on the, shall we say, rich side.  The carnitas, salsas, beans and rice were new recipes (well, new for me to use, they actually came from an 8-year old "Bon Appétit" and have been waiting in the wings ever since….).  The tortillas are my standard, and the dessert I’d made once before and loved.

WARNING:  This is going to be a long, long, looooooooooong, picture intensive post.  But I will give you the complete recipes for everything at the end.  And just so's ya knows, one of the projects I’m working on, and trying to figure out how to accomplish, is to have a separate page with a sorted list of the recipes I’ve posted.  The links will click you back to the original post with the recipe.  I know how annoyed *I* get when I’m blog cruising, and find a great recipe, and have to cut and paste in 45 different steps to get it so I can print it and use it.  But that’s in the Future Machine right now.  So bear with me, there are a couple of gems in here.

Oh, and we had cilantro slaw too, but that won’t be covered here, since we’ve talked about it before.  Basically, shredded cabbage, chopped cucumber, chopped onion and chopped cilantro, dressed with olive oil, lime juice and minced garlic.  It’s good !

Onward to La Fiesta En La Cocina Pequeña!