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.

A Drink of Ale

I try to curb my intake of red meat for health reasons, such as cholesterol control and THE GOUT control, but I saw these top sirloin beef cuts in the butcher case, and I figured I wanted to eat them. Each cut was approximately 2 x 2 x 1.5 inches, just the perfect size for my temperament, and probably the right amount of protein for a man, particularly one who is trying to be less of a surfeiter.

I am always working on improving my methods of cooking, and that includes steak. Lately I do it like this: First I sprinkle kosher salt liberally on the beef. It doesn't have to be a cut the size I mentioned, but I prefer it to be. If I'm thinking correctly, I salt every bit of surface area. Then I liberally grind black pepper on the steak. I bought some tellicherry peppercorns from P's spices, and this variety truly is the King of Spices, as they say. I was thumbing through an Emeril book, and he even recommended roasting the peppercorns, something I never considered. As they are, raw corns are pretty good.

The steaks will then sit out for a bit to come to room temperature. In the meantime, I sliced potatoes to make a gratin. Yukon Gold potatoes are my favorite for just about everything. Yukons present a slightly creamy texture that is quite appealing. I don't know why, but I had the perception that new potatoes or red potatoes were the better variety, but I was wrong.

After the slicing, I readied the sauce for the gratin which consisted of milk (cream is what I should have used, but I didn't have any), S & P, green-can cheese that I love for many things, about a cup of sour cream, a tablespoon of olive oil, whatever freshly grated parm I had, which was nothing but a few tablespoons, and two or three garlic cloves. I wish that I had included more shredded cheese in the mix, but as I said, I am trying to be somewhat conscious of the amount of food I consume. I also could have included caramelized onions that would be very kind to the dish, but I was lazy about cutting them and letting them cook for the time they require to really caramelize.

The gratin baked for about an hour, and I was disappointed that it was still liquidy after that amount of time. I attribute this to the fact that I had no cream. The cheese also reacted strangely and formed little chewy clumps of cheese at various spots that tasted okay, but just were not incorporated very well into the sauce. Finally I became impatient with the slow rate of evaporation. I poured most of the liquid into the sink and turned up the heat. My potatoes were browning and I was ready to eat some steak and potatoes.

By now, I had prepared the steaks, and they were just about ready to rest. Oh, man, did they turn out well, or rather medium. First, I seared them in a well heated pan. Of course, I was impatient and tried to turn them before they were ready, and that left bits of beef on the bottom of the pan. Anyway, I pried them off the pan and turned them, let that side sear and brown, and I put the pan into the oven for about ten minutes @ 350. When I removed the pan from the oven, the pan side of the meat had crusted, which was my goal. Then I sat them on a plate to rest for a few minutes. The potatoes were also ready to come out of the oven to rest, allowing the last bit of sauce to finally set.

The last thing I cooked was the sauce for the steak. Using that same pan and being extra attentive to the fact that it just came out of the oven (only once did I attempt to grab the handle bare-handed, but remembered just at the right time), I deglazed with a bit of Chardonnay and let that reduce before adding a few mushrooms I sauted earlier sometime. I added a turn or two of Worcestershire sauce, and that cooked awhile. When it was done, I mounted the sauce with butter and poured it over and around the steaks. I am telling you that it was delicious. The little crust, the tender, pink medium interior just warm, and that sauce—oh, yeah. My mother never would eat this steak, though. She will eat no meat with even a hint of pink. She would be missing out on this one.

The potatoes did not turn out the way I wanted them to, but sometimes that's how it works out when you're cooking. They still ate pretty well, considering the cheese clumps, as the potatoes were flavorful and tender, having soaked up a lot of the sauce. Still some left in the fridge, actually, and they're even better today as most things are when they sit together for some time. I had a bite and then I had a drink of ale. And another drink of ale. And another drink of ale.