Mild, medium or hot - how do you like your green chiles?

The green chile harvest in Southern New Mexico heralds the approach of many invigorating sensations - the promise of cooler fall weather, the anticipation of outdoor festivals, and, best of all, the fresh green chile season.

"What's the big deal with green chiles?"  you may well ask if you are not familiar with this fall ritual.  Locals take the availability of fresh green chiles very seriously indeed.

This year my husband Wayne and I were invited by another El Paso couple to join them in a traditional chile-buying expedition.  Although fresh green chiles begin appearing in local markets in August and continue through September, we made plans for an outing to nearby Hatch, New Mexico, billed as the Green Chile Capital of the World!

The small town of Hatch is located about an hour and a half's drive from El Paso, Texas. And it is a pleasant drive, city streets giving way to farmland as we arrived around noon.  At  Sparky's, the traditional stop for hamburgers, our lunch conversation was mostly green-chile centered. Is it better to have the store roast the chiles for you or roast them at home on your own grill?   How many pounds of chiles should you buy to last a year?  And most important of all - should you request mild, medium, or hot chiles? Opinions on these important points differed greatly!

This looked like the right spot for our chile shopping.

Fresh bags of chiles were arriving from the farm.

And being quickly unloaded.

Wayne and I chose a 40 pound sack of mild chiles to have roasted on the spot.  The terms mild, medium or hot are of course relative terms.  And this is one decision you don't want to leave to the chile salesman!  Wayne bit into one of the raw chiles from the mild stack and gave his seal of approval.

The chiles were put into the roaster and removed when the skins had blackened.  Ah, if only I could capture the distinct aroma of roasting chiles on this page!

Our friends chose two sacks of medium-hot Big Jim chiles, which they planned to take home to roast. They also bought a ristra, red chiles on a string, much used in the Southwest for decoration or preparation of red chile sauce.

We put our chiles in a cooler with ice in the trunk so they wouldn't get over-steamed and brought them home immediately to bag up for the freezer.

 

Then came another big decision.  With this abundance of chiles, how should we use them?  We consumed a few with a light sprinkling of salt during the bagging process.  I decided to make an easy, all purpose green chile sauce using a recipe in the September issue of  New Mexico Magazine.

Basically, you saute onions and garlic, add a little flour, add chopped and roasted chiles, then add chicken stock and salt. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes.  Quite easy!  We had enough sauce for cheese enchiladas, topping for an omelet, and the last bit mixed with a little white cheese for a supper side dish.

There is something very comforting about having two freezer shelves stacked with roasted green chile packages waiting for some creative cooking.  And I'm so glad we chose the mild chiles!  All taste without the burn.  Guess we are going soft!