I Went to Juarez One Time...

I love Mexican food: Tacos. Burritos. Chimichangas! Chiles Rellenos. Chiles Rellenos is a tasty dish, but creating it takes some doing, just like everything else that's worth anything, I suppose. The wife loves them since poblano peppers are very low on the heat index while still being quite flavorful. I love stuffed chiles because the ingredients are hard not to love.

To begin, I roasted four poblano chiles in the oven. Most recipes say to roast the peppers until the skin blackens; then put them in a bag to steam, thus facilitating the peeling of the skin. But I just turn off the oven after they've roasted awhile and let them sit in there since I am not going to peel the skin anyway. Poblano skin (and the roasted capsicum flesh underneath) is very delicate and in my experience not unpleasant to eat if it's not blackened, so I just leave it on.

As the peppers roasted, I prepared the stuffing mixture. Into my bowl went my remaining chopped cilantro, shredded mozzarella, an egg, a bit of Green-Can cheese, half of an onion that I diced and sauted slowly, and Salt and Pepper. I mixed that with my own bare hands, and it was ready to use.

Most of the time when you order rellenos, they are still in the form of the poblano pepper. Since I am not a professional, I simply open the pepper to remove the stems and seeds and lay it as flat as possible. Then I take just enough of the cheese mixture and wrap the pepper around it, burrito style. I have found that this method enables the pepper to stay stuffed, especially with the beer batter around it, but you have to rein yourself in from heaping too much mixture. That will cause the peppers to burst.

The beer batter is simple: beer, flour, and some of that Essence mixture I made about a week or so ago. I poured about a cup of flour in the bowl and added a bottle of Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale to it. Dogfish Head brews very tasty and often strong beer, which I like. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it is the right consistency, adding more flour if needed. Then I placed a stuffed pepper on a slotted spoon and dunked it into the batter. I have some oil in the pan, and I drop the battered stuffed pepper down gently into that hot oil. Let them brown and turn them over. Place them on a paper towel to drain, and they are nearly ready to eat.

I also had some sauce left from making meatballs, so I wanted to use it to make a little bit of spicy enchilada-type sauce. I added some chicken stock and some water, as well as chili powder, cumin, and about a teaspoon of the remaining pepper flakes. A few years ago, I found an immersion blender brand new in the box at a yard sale, and occasionally I get to put it to use. I blended that sauce until it was smooth and over the peppers and rice it went. Even though it was way too hot for her usual taste, the wife even suffered a few spoonsful of the sauce. She said she could taste the beer in the dish, but I was obliviously lost in melted cheese and spicy sauce.