Roasting green chilies. I don’t know if this is truly official yet, but it’s all around the internets.

So how do you eat them? Like other grilled vegetables? Or is there some other sorcery?

If they will ship them back East, I’d like to find out why they’re so beloved.

I only know that the chilies are strung in a ristra and hung in the kitchen.
The cook pulls a chile from the ristra and drops it in the pot when cooking.
I think Nina knows a lot more. Hopefully she will join the thread.

Hatch chile is really good. The chile has a pronounced flavor and a good amount of heat without burning down the house. Well, people vary the heat to their taste by choosing how much of the pith and seeds to include in the sauce.

They are only available fresh around labor day. I see them in my local market for about two weeks in early September and then they're gone.

I've home-roasted them. You do it like you're making Italian roasted peppers. Blister the skin and put 'em in a bag to fully steam. Then let 'em cool a little and pull off the skin. Dice up the peppers, making sure to discard the seeds unless you like crying. You may need to do this with gloves on if you're sensitive to the oils. I have had burning hand syndrome once or twice.

Then you cook up the diced chiles with onion and garlic and toasted cumin and whatever else you want and voila, homemade chile base.

If you don't want all the hassle, there are decent bottled products that reflect all the above steps. I find this product works well in my recipes for chile-this and chile-that.

Zia Hatch Chile Company


We'll be in NM for the last two weeks of August, so we may get to experience all the roasting in person! Many grocery stores plant a big roaster in the parking lot and people bring their Chiles to be roasted right on the spot. It's sort of like tailgating without the football game!

If you want to see how they roast them commercially, look at the Zia Hatch Chile landing page and you'll see the kind of roaster they use.

BTW, like most chiles they turn red if left on the plant to fully ripen. That's what CHAS posted above. The ristras are made from the dried red version. Dried red chiles are reconstituted in hot water and turned into a red chile base in a blender. That's served with pork.

The dried red chile is often ground into a powder and used to make the thin red chile sauce that adorns many a breakfast plate in NM. On most breakfasts, the waiter will ask you "red, green, or Christmas?" That's red chile sauce, green chile sauce, or both!

The powder form is the specialty up in Chimayo, which is an old Spanish pilgrimage site north of Santa Fe near the High Road to Taos.

This, for instance: Casa Chimayo

Hatch chilis are wicked good seeded and stuffed with something like cheese and roasted on the grill.

Bacon wrap optional.

Whenever I drive to or from Tucson I try to schedule my arrival so that I can have lunch in Hatch, NM.
https://i.postimg.cc/2875ZJqk/...ey-Cafe-Hatch-NM.jpg

Hatch chiles stuffed with cheese are also deep fried or baked. They are called Chile Relleno on menus. When I asked for them in Mexico years ago I got blank stares. Now they can be found on menus.

Ditto to what everyone else has said above. Some things are instant nostalgia for me - the smell of pinon pine fires, and the smell of roasting chiles.

I've taken that trip from Taos through Hatch to Tucson a bunch of times - CHAS, I'm assuming that's your route from Colorado? It's a pretty nice drive, with the added bonus that you go right by Hatch and can pick up chiles and lunch.

My local version of Whole Foods (New Seasons, if you're familiar with it) had a Hatch chile festival a few years back, where they had the roaster, etc., in the parking lot and you could buy big bags of roasted chiles in the store. I bought one bag, thinking this would be an annual event, but I don't believe they've done it sense.

Now I'm really hungry and homesick....

BTW, chile and mango or papaya is a tasty combo. Same with chile and chocolate, though I think that's a bit better known. You can buy chile-based paletas in a lot of stores and Mexican food markets, in several fruit flavors.

In addition to the chilies in a jar, from Zia, what about ground chili powder from The Chile Shop in Santa Fe? They have dried ground chilies (Hatch among them.)

Costco carries chopped Hatch chiles in a jar. They’re green. i don’t remember what the ingredients were besides chiles. Might be more of a salsa.

Not as good as fresh, but if you want to try them out…

Around here, chiles rellenos are made with poblanos.

quote:

Originally posted by RealPlayer:
In addition to the chilies in a jar, from Zia, what about ground chili powder from The Chile Shop in Santa Fe? They have dried ground chilies (Hatch among them.)

I have walked past the Chile Shop hundreds of times, but don't recall ever having stopped in. Curious. It's right next door to Cafe Pasqual's, which is an institution in Santa Fe. So I can't tell you much about it!

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
Costco carries chopped Hatch chiles in a jar. They’re green. i don’t remember what the ingredients were besides chiles. Might be more of a salsa.

Not as good as fresh, but if you want to try them out

Around here, chiles rellenos are made with poblanos.

Poblanos are good - and traditional, but Hatches are better.

We can get poblanos most places here…not hatch. Looking forward to trying them, however I can.

Yup, same for poblanos here; they're available all year round. I also grow them in my little vegetable garden. They're good producers and we love the flavor.

I think I saw Hatch chiles for sale in the grocery stores here last year, maybe starting two years ago, for a couple of weeks at the end of summer. I didn't buy any because I was having trouble keeping up with the bumper crop of peppers that I had. But after all this hype, I'll definitely give them a try if I see them again this year!

Last week I shopped at a supermarket I don’t usually use, and they had Anaheim chilies —- which I had heard of, but hadn’t seen. They were very good with a rich flavor (but little heat) and I heard they are quite similar to Hatch. Is this true?

They also had Cubanelles, another long chile.

Have been told that Anaheim chilies are the same as Hatch chilies.
I have never found a difference.