Pumpkin-spice-everything seems to be heavily in fashion every September through November, but what I get excited about is the fresh roasted Hatch chiles I can get at my local farmer's market. Every Saturday morning, I can smell them roasting from my front porch as I have my morning tea, and I follow the smell by foot all the way downtown, where I have my choice of mild, medium hot, or "x-hot" (which I'm pretty sure would actually kill me). After the brutal sun and dry Colorado heat of July and August, they are abundant by September, and our local guys spend all morning cranking the simple, antique-looking roaster to fill up zip-top bags with the goods. I'd never enjoyed their splendor before moving out West, and I can never get enough.
If you can get your hands on some roasted green chiles, a few bits of advice:
- Try to remove the skins while the peppers are still warm in the bag, and they are at their sweatiest. As they cool, the skins begin to re-adhere, making your job more difficult.
- Don't rinse them under water to help remove the skins, no matter how tempting. The flavor gets watered down and less vegetal.
- Try a bite before choosing to remove the seeds. You can control the heat this way--if the peppers are very hot, go ahead and scrape them out, but if you got "medium" and wish you had gotten the "hot", leaving the seeds might help bump up the heat a little bit.
You can chop and freeze portions in bags to add to soups, a pot of beans, green rice, scrambled eggs...etc. etc. etc. For instance,
Green Chili Deluxe
Green Chili and Potato Gratin
throw some in your
New Mexico breakfast burritos
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