Love That New Mexico Chile

The Hatch Chile Festival is usually held around Labor Day and this year the dates are August 30-31. You can think of it as a mini-Woodstock for chile-heads. The Southern New Mexico festival celebrates the harvest of the year’s chile crop and there will be plenty of it to be had. The chile roasters will be roaring and that one of a kind aroma fills the air.

Activities also include chile eating contests, the coronation of the Chile Queen, live music, auctions and more contests.

As far as a town goes, Hatch New Mexico is pretty darn small and motel rooms are limited. Larger communities in Southern New Mexico with more motel rooms include Las Cruces, Demming, and Truth or Consequences. (The locals call it T or C) You might have better luck finding motel rooms in those locations.
Take plenty of sun screen and a big hat. There is not much shade, but there is plenty of New Mexico chile goodness and fun. And beer. Here is a link to the official Hatch Chile Festival website.

This is a super easy casserole dish that my late mother-in-law Ruth Schneider used to make. It combines a common summer veggie with the zing of New Mexico green chile. You may even have the veggie in your home garden. The list of ingredients is short:

Here is a quick and easy way to use up some left-over ham and get your fix of New Mexico green chile.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and fetch a 2 quart casserole dish. Here is what else you’ll need: Read the rest of this entry »

My wife is among those who out of tradition want to have some black-eyed peas on New Year’s day. She likes them and wants to eat them for “good luck.” I’m less enthusiastic about the peas and believe that it is bad luck to be superstitious.

After seeing a recipe that suggested adding black-eyed peas to home made salsa to keep the New Year tradition alive I decided to try the same with Pico de Gallo and of course include New Mexico green chile. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a recurring bit in “The Simpsons” where Homer eats some kind of fiery spicy hot food, has a cartoonish physical reaction like flaming smoke rings flying out of his mouth while shrieking, then promptly and calmly says “more please.”

Not so when Dr. Paul Bosland of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University bit into a Bhut Jolokia, now considered the world’s hottest chile pepper. One bite was enough to convince him that this pepper packed some record setting heat and what he’d really like was a glass of milk and not another helping of that pod.

The Bhut Jolokia is indigenous to north eastern India and the name translates into “ghost pepper.” Seeds were sent to New Mexico by a colleague of Dr. Bosland. Plants were raised under controlled conditions and the heat levels tested in laboratories. Would you believe a pepper three times hotter than a habanero? Over a million Scoville Heat Units? Dude, that is hot!

You can read more about it here.

This recipe is less about the New Mexico green chile and more about what the heck to do with all that turkey you have left over from the holiday dinners. More specifically, the bits and pieces of dark meat scattered about the platter. Sure, the breast meat will find its way into sandwiches and omelette’s faster than Uncle Purvis can scratch himself and ask for seconds, but what about the lowly chunks of wing and thigh meat?

Whack that dark meat into bite sized pieces then break out a big pot and a can opener. This one is easy but mighty tasty. Read the rest of this entry »

Quesadillas are a great way to enjoy the flavor of New Mexico green chile. Most people probably cook quesadillas in a large skillet but this recipe uses a hot oven to crisp up the otherwise floppy flour tortillas. It also uses ground beef as part of the filling but chicken, turkey, pork, veggies, or just cheese works well too. Just don’t forget the New Mexico green chile! Here’s what you’ll need… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really looking forward to the end of the summer heat and some cool evenings now that the calendar says it is fall. Not that you would know it around these parts, but I digress.

Cooler weather calls for stews and the following recipe is a pretty classic one for New Mexico green chile stew. So pull out the Dutch oven or a big ol’ stew pot…

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I’m thinking this recipe using New Mexico chiles has some Cajun influence somewhere in its history because it starts with a roux. Or maybe I’ve been watching too much Emeril Live.

Grab a big pot and a half cup of New Mexico green chile. Hatch chile would be excellent. Read the rest of this entry »

I had rubbed the blistered peels off of some good sized Hatch New Mexico chile pods that I thought would be perfect for chile rellenos. However, I wanted to freeze them and make the rellenos another day. I also wanted to freeze the batch in such a way that I could grab just a few without having to thaw a whole bag of pods.

I figured laying the chile pods out on cookie sheets would give me individually frozen pods but I didn’t want them sticking to the cookie sheet. I also wanted to freeze two layers of chile pods. What to use, waxed paper or parchment paper for lining the sheet?

It turns out, in my little experiment anyway, that parchment paper does a better job and lets go of the pods nicely. The chile had a tendency to stick to the waxed paper.

Just spread out a piece of parchment paper on the cookie sheet and lay the pods on the parchment paper side by side but don’t let them touch. Put the cookie sheets in the freezer overnight. You should then be able to move the frozen pods into a freezer bag, get them right back into the freezer, and have a handy supply of chiles to draw from when you get a hankering for chile rellenos.