Green Chile - a primer

Food & Cooking
1

Green chile season is coming up and I wanted to share some thoughts for anyone interested.

What is it?
A sauce or stew made with green (unripened) chili peppers, typically New Mexican chiles, named after their region of cultivation (Hatch, Anaheim, Pueblo, etc). If you order something “smothered” in Colorado or New Mexico, it’s what’s going to be covering everything you ordered. What gravy is to the midwest, green chile is to the southwest.

What’s in it?
The simplest recipes are just chiles, a liquid, and a thickener. Many recipes incorporate aromatics, other vegetables, meat and seasonings

Chiles
The best chiles for this dish are going to be the New Mexican variety, roasted for you by the bushel. Hatch is the most well-known but they’re also grown outside of New Mexico and I can’t tell the difference. The next best are frozen roasted/diced chiles. After that, canned ones are fine. I’ve only ever seen Hatch chiles frozen or canned. I had a coworker from New Mexico who used roasted jalapenos for her green chile, and she won the chili cookoff every year in the hot/green category, so I think it’s not typical but it can work if you like it hot.

Liquid
Water can be used but I prefer stock. Pork stock is the most common but I prefer chicken. I typically have a lot of backs/necks on hand so that’s what I use. I think most people use pork shoulder roasts but I prefer stock with more collagen. I would bet a stock made from a trotter would be amazing.

Thickener
A light roux is the default, usually made with lard. Santiago’s restaurant in Denver uses bacon fat for their roux. I usually use schmatlz skimmed from my chicken stock, but anything works here really. Cornstarch is not ideal. It’s fine for fine adjustments but I wouldn’t use it to thicken the whole batch. I prefer masa for thickening (a la Chubby’s).

Aromatics
Onions are common. I would dice finely and cook in whatever fat you’re using for the roux, then add the flour to the cooked onion/fat mixture. Garlic is seldom used, I would advice against it.

Other vegetables
Tomatoes are common, used sparingly. I’ve seen tomatillos used as well, but don’t. The chiles are already acidic and tomatillos don’t bring anything to the party in my opinion. Tomato paste is also commonly used, which I would recommend to add depth of flavor.

Meat
Pork is the most common type of meat used, usually from whatever stock was made. I usually skip it.

Seasoning
I’ve seen one or all of the following used: cumin, coriander and oregano. You don’t need them. You at least need salt. I use the Knorr chicken powder (caldo de pollo) which is very salty.

My recipe
Here’s a recipe I’ve been tinkering with for the past decade or so.

Ingredients:
5-7lbs of green chilles, roasted and cleaned.
1 huge onion or 2 medium
1 gallon of chicken stock + 2 cups reserved
6oz tomato paste
Chicken fat or neutral oil like canola

Instructions:
Cook the onions in a large pot with the fat.
Add a quart of the chicken stock and half the chiles.
Blend chile/onion mixture to a smooth consistency
Add remaining half of the chiles with a medium/fine dice (somewhere between 1/4"-1/2" squares).
Add tomato paste and bring to a boil
Season to taste with salt or chicken powder
Mix 1-2 cups of masa with the reserved stock (the blended chiles help thicken the dish, use 1 cup for a thinner sauce, 2 cups for a thicker sauce depending on preference)
Add to boiling pot while whisking vigorously to incorporate
Bring back to a boil and check for lumps and consistency
Adjust thickness and salt level

Serve on everything and enjoy!

2

Nateo thanks for the post. I’m going to try some tomato paste, next time.

3

One thing I can add is the Hatch Chiles are like saying Yakima Hops. There are many varieties, some hotter than others, and a long history of breeding for flavor or heat.

I’m a fan of Chimayo Chile powder that we can buy in Santa Fe at the Farmers Market

4

I guess that’s one persons attempt to empirically define green chile, an endeavor that makes about as much sense as trying to empirically define “stew” or “beer” by what it’s constituent ingredients are. From my experience and IMO “green chile” is whatever you want to create and call green chile, within some VERY broad limitations. If you take a bread dough crust, slather it with marinara sauce, cover it with pepperoni and cheese and bake it you’re gonna have difficulty convincing anyone it’s green chile. ASFIC the only absolute requirement for green chile is some form of a chile as a dominant player in the recipe. That being said, I wouldn’t dream of making GC without, cilantro, coriander [both derived from the same plant], garlic, onions and either pork or chicken, and that’s just the start of all the groovy stuff I include in my GC - and FWIW, I haven’t thickened any GC in over 20 years. To me, and a lot of folks GC isn’t just a glorified gravy to be served over the main course, green chile IS the main course. When it comes to green chile and pico, you can’t have too many ingredients!

5

This is a collection of my observations on the topic, it’s not a definitive guide but includes some firsthand knowledge of recipes for the dish from well known restaurants in Denver, and some second hand knowledge on the dish from my wife’s family from New Mexico. A lot of people who aren’t from the area are unfamiliar with the dish, and there are a lot of misconceptions about it.

If you want to make green chile as found in restaurants in Colorado, I would skip the cilantro, coriander, garlic, and thicken with roux. Just like beer, there are certain ingredients that are common, certain that are less common, and certain that define commercial examples of the style.

6

Thanks for sharing this! My chile garden this year has less superhots and more in the Hatch/Numex/Anaheim/Jalapeno range, as well as several paprika varieties for smoking and/or drying. Unfortunately, I got a late start this year and the timing of hot weather in June followed by wet in July isn’t helping my plants either. Hopefully I end up with enough of a harvest to try this out this season.

7

Hatch chiles have finally started to show up in our supermarkets here in Montana in August/September the past couple of years. Usually we can find two varieties: Sandia and Big Jim. Sandias are hotter and smaller than Big Jims. I am partial to Big Jim, as the Sandias are a bit too hot for my wife.

8

Nice, green chiles is the thing I missed most when I was living in Missouri and Germany. We usually buy 3-4 bushels when they’re in season and freeze them.

9

Those along with Joe Parker are common varieties. There are many, some with an alphanumeric.

One thing I learned recently is that Chile Plants are perennials. Up here in MI we would have to have them in pots and winter them inside.

From a search.

10

What nateo describes is the green chile you get as a sauce whereas what I read from your description sounds like green chile stew. I agree with you when making stew you would want to add other aromatics and meat which would be more of a meal than a condiment–although stew is also served as a condiment around here.

11

I generally agree–there isn’t a difference in flavor purely by growing region. There are differences in varieties that seem to affect flavor. The chiles sold as Anaheim are far more bland than most other NuMex varieties. I’ve grown a few different NuMex varieties both in Texas and Denver and in both locations they taste a lot like Hatch chiles.