RECIPE: REC: Diana Kennedy's Chiles Rellenos. I've been enjoying my earth oven for baking bread lately

RECIPE:
J

joe

Well-known member
and the technique calls for building a very hot fire to heat the clay, then raking out the coals and letting the oven cool down a bit before baking. In the interim the hot oven can be used for pizza or pita bread, but I've found it perfect for roasting chiles. I've also found they freeze well after peeling.

I've never met a chile relleno I didn't like. My mom made them with a can of Ortega chiles and jack cheese. I thought they were so exotic at the time. I like them with thin batter, thick batter, any type of sauce, and any type of cheese. I've even enjoyed them stuffed with Velveeta.

Diana Kennedy's recipe is superb. The batter is light and crisp--mostly air--and the broth (not a sauce!) is delicious. She calls for a meat picadillo stuffing, which is in the link, and cheese as a variation. The pork broth from making the picadillo becomes the base for the tomato broth for serving. Here is my version. I use cheese for the filling because it's hard for me to imagine a chile relleno without cheese, and chicken stock for the broth:

CHILES RELLENOS

Diana Kennedy, The Cuisines of Mexico

THE TOMATO BROTH

1¼ pounds tomatoes

3 tbsp. roughly chopped white onion

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

2 tbps. lard or vegetable oil (I use the fat from the chicken stock)

4 whole cloves

6 peppercorns

2 Mexican bay leaves

¼ tsp. dried thyme

1-1/2- inch cinnamon stick, broken into two pieces

3 cups chicken stock

Salt to taste

THE CHILES

6 poblano chiles, charred and peeled

About 8 oz. Oaxaca or Jack cheese, cut in 12 strips

THE BATTER

Vegetable oil for frying

4 large eggs, separated

¼ tsp. salt

Flour

Directions:

TO PREPARE THE TOMATO BROTH:

Peel and seed the tomatoes: blanch in boiling water for 15 seconds, then plunge in cold water. Peel off the skin. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out the seeds. Strain the seeds to extract the tomato water and reserve.

Blend the tomatoes and their water with the onion and garlic until smooth. Melt the fat in a wide pan and fry the blended tomatoes over high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the broth and salt, and cook them over high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring.

Add the broth and continue cooking the over medium heat for about 10 minutes. By that time it will be well seasoned and reduced somewhat-but still a broth rather than a thick sauce. Add salt as necessary.

TO PREPARE THE CHILES:

Make a slit in the side of each chile and carefully remove the seeds and veins. Be careful to leave the top of the chile, the part around the base of the stem, intact.

Stuff each chili with 2 strips of cheese and bring the edges together. Don't worry if the chiles tear. The batter will hold them together for frying

TO PREPARE THE BATTER:

Meanwhile, beat the egg whites until they are firm, but not too dry. Add the salt and egg yolks one by one, beating well after each addition.

Prepare one chile at a time: pat the chile completely dry (or batter will not adhere)and sprinkle them lightly with flour. Coat with batter.

Fry in the hot oil, turning it from time to time, until the batter turns a deep golden color-about 2 minutes.

Drain the chiles on paper toweling and place them in the tomato broth--it should come about halfway up the chiles--to heat through over low heat. Serve immediately.

DIANA'S NOTE:

You can prepare the stuffing and the sauce the day before, and clean the chiles. You can prepare the chiles 2 hours ahead, but do not put them into the broth. Place them on a rimmed cookie sheet lined with several layers of paper toweling, and reheat in a 350 F over for about 20 minutes. This method has the added advantage that the paper absorbs quite a lot of the grease. Then place the chiles in the broth or pour broth over and serve with hot tortillas. I do not recommend freezing.

Joe's notes: I find the roasted chiles themselves freeze well, so it's worth the trouble to roast and peel extra while you're at it. Chiles Poblanos are sometimes called Chiles Pasillas in the Californias, while the name pasilla usually refers to dried chiles in other parts of Mexico. By any name they are the dark green, heart-shaped mild chiles. Their dried version, Chiles Anchos, are dark brown and sweet. They are the base for mole poblano. Diana suggests using them as a variation for chiles rellenos--soaking them first, then cutting out the veins and seeds. I haven't yet tried it but it sounds interesting.

Since there are only two of us, this lasts for three meals, served with tortillas and beans (The beans cook overnight in the outdoor oven after the baking is done.) I keep them out of the broth and they reheat well, two at a time, in the toaster oven on a pan lined with paper towels.

https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/13133101/chiles-rellenos-de-picadillo-poblano-chiles-stuffed-with-meat-diana-kennedy/

 
This is how I remember a Mexican neighbor once making them for me. . .

LIght and crispy in a beautiful tomato broth. Great stuff. I had made a birthday cake for her and she returned the favor by bringing me her chile rellenos. Very good stuff, and one of my favorite dishes.

 
A lovely memory. I'm curious, were they stuffed with cheese or picadillo?

One of Kennedy's other books has a recipe that uses meat uses meat and potato filling

 
Joe, thanks for sharing this. My mom and dad made chile rellanos the same way as your mom -

canned Ortega green chiles and jack cheese as the filling. I still prefer them that way, even though I've had many other very delicious versions of them.

I very much miss my mother making these - she and my dad used to do a big Mexican feast each NYE. My dad's stepmom was Mexican and had taught him some of her dishes. We always had these rellanos, along with pork or cheese enchiladas with red sauce, and my dad would make a huge batch of sopapillas. Sigh...

smileys/smile.gif

 
My mom went crazy when she married my dad and moved to California. She loved Mexican food

from the start. One of my dad's coworker's wives taught her basic enchiladas, beans and rice. We lived in north Torrance, and on Fridays Dad treated us to the now defunct Tijuana Inn in Gardena. I thought it was because he adored us so, and he did, but it was also CHEAP! They started reserving a table for us every Friday. My mom developed her recipes for Chiles Rellenos and Pork Burritos (Chile Verde) by chatting up the waitresses. (I don't think they had access to fresh chiles then either.)

I love stories about how white Californians have been seduced by Mexican food over time.

 
When our kids were little, we used to go to Tia Maria's. It was somewhere along the CA coastline

south of San Francisco...just can't recall where. Maybe somewhere near Monterey? They had a mariachi band, and would come over to seranade us. Our little daughter hated it, but the rest of us loved it.
Their food was so good!

 
This brought back a flashback of the women cooks at Rancho de Chimayo. Their

batter for chile Relleno was very airy (whipped egg whites) but THIS was the image I remember: they would take a stuffed chili, coat it with batter, lay it lengthwise in the flat palm of their hand and then SLOWLY lower their hand until it was a mere 2 inches above a vat of HOT oil. Then they would rotate their hand over and let the battered relleno gently slip (not drop!) into the hot oil.

I was simply AWED at the bravery of bare flesh that close to boiling oil. Yet these grandmotherly-looking women did it over and over and over again.

They were some of the best rellenos I've ever eaten.

 
I'm not that brave yet! I do, however, remember a technique a friend used years ago.

instead of dipping the chiles in the batter, he spooned a bed of batter into the hot oil, set the chile upon it, then spooned more batter on top.

 
Mexican food was a staple in our CA house! We had enchiladas for Christmas every year

From my southern mom and Iowan dad. And turkey enchiladas are a must for a leftover Thanksgiving, it's the best part of Thanksgiving actually for most of us.

In fact, and this is kind of sad, My mom said she fully realized my aunt had dementia when my aunt called her to ask her what those round things were and what was she supposed to do with them? And they were tortillas, and my mom told me my aunt was the one that taught her how to make enchiladas.

PS
When my grandparents came to visit from Iowa, I still remember they were freaked out by artichokes and avocados. Us kids thought they were crazy and were very happy there was more for us!

 
This is the method my mom and dad used when frying the rellanos, they used this really old beat up

skillet that was reserved for this job - it was "The Rellano Pan' and it lived in the back of the cabinet until the holidays.

 
What a great food and family memory! We used to go to a place in Long Beach right off

the traffic circle for "fancy" dinner, the last time I drove by it was still there but I can't remember the name. After we moved from CA and came back each summer vacation to visit my grandparents, the whole family always went there for dinner. I have very fond memories of this place.

For more every day, my mom loved this place called Mexico Lindo, I think it was on Long Beach Boulevard, one of those true hole in the walls with the best food.

 
Maria - so sad about your auntie. I feel the same about my mom, not sure she would be able

to make any of this food any more, she is in mid-stage Alzheimers. I am glad she showed me everything she did, but mine never tastes as good as hers.

 
Roast some poblanos in your super cool oven (John and I are jealous

by the way. We wish we could have one!) and stuff with the pecadillo. Delicious.

 
I'm with you, Orchid, I realllly want one of Joe's oven in my back yard to turn out

cool pizzas and breads and such like Joe. smileys/smile.gif

Hubby said maybe once we finish the kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel, and a few other remodeling items. We'll see.

 
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