For breakfast I made a version of Chiles Rellenos that I have developed over the years. It is not in any sense authentic to any Mexican, Tex-Mex, or New Mexican tradition. Chiles Rellenos is one of the dishes I judge any such restaurant by, and I love the traditional version. For myself at home, however, I skip the egg batter to save carbohydrates and calories and instead put the eggs straight into the chiles (and more of them). I also replace the delicious Mexican cheese with cottage cheese for higher protein, and since I'm already well over the wall on substitutions, I replace the meat with Tennessee Pride hot sausage, the same sort I use for Southern biscuits and gravy (pride of Nashville, actually, the home of country music that I visited this weekend).
It's a simple recipe. Per serving:
1 poblano pepper
1 egg
1/8th-ish cottage cheese
1 TBSP-ish sausage
Salt/spices to taste (see recipe)
The "-ish" in the recipe is because chiles vary in size, and you want to fill each one as pictured.
Wash and broil the chiles until very well blistered, turning once around midway in the process. Wrap in a wet towel (or paper towel) and place in a glass container (or plastic bag) to steam. Once they have steamed and cooled, scrape off the waxy skin, split them longways and scrape out at least some of the seeds and pith; no need to be perfect here.
Place the sausage and cheese along each side to create a boat in the center for the egg. Crack the egg in the center. Those who don't love hot food can use a milder sausage than Tennessee Pride Hot, and simply salt the egg to taste. Those who, like myself, love hot food can use hot sausage, and 'salt' with a Creole mix or, if you want it authentic to me, Grim's Red Seasoning. When it's salty enough for you, it's seasoned correctly too.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, depending on how set you want your eggs. If you like runny eggs, closer to 17 minutes depending on your altitude; if you want them set so they don't drip into your beard while you eat, 20 gets you a jammy egg at this altitude (about ~3,500 feet); 24 gets you fully cooked eggs.
I topped this with a New Mexican Red Sauce, but that's not a special recipe of mine; that recipe is well known. Here's one that looks right to me if you don't happen to know it already.
2 comments:
Those sound great. We use poblanos here in lieu of green bell peppers, because they ship and store better, and we're going to add pepper anyway, and they're barely hot. Also, you can grow them easily in our climate, with good bug resistance, whereas bell peppers are hothouse wimps. I confess I'd miss the batter that traditional rellenos are wrapped in, but it's a lot of trouble. I don't know how to pull it off at home at all. It's one of the things I enjoy about ordering it in a good TexMex restaurant. Anyway, it's hard to beat a stuffed baked pepper no matter what you put in there in the way of meat and cheese and maybe eggs and onions. Jalapeno poppers are among everyone's favorite canapes around here, always welcome at a potluck.
The batter is not difficult to make, actually. It's really just eggs, flour and buttermilk (or sour milk, or regular milk, or heavy cream). Add more flour until the batter is thick and clingy; have the hot oil ready to go when you dredge the stuffed pepper in it, so you can transfer the thickly-coated pepper right into the hot oil. Frying will set the proteins and keep it from dripping like even a thickened batter would if you set it on a plate for a while.
Otherwise the process is very similar to what is described here: broil the peppers, let them steam, scrape off the waxy skin, split and remove seeds, stuff a little less full than these because you need the pepper to close. Set it in the batter split side up, spoon some batter over the spit side rather than turning it, dredge without turning until it's properly covered, go to the oil.
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