Chiles en Nogada - An Autumn Culinary Delight!

Pomegranate tree

The pomegranate tree in our courtyard has been a vigorous grower this season.  It has even deigned to provide us with a few pomegranate fruits.

Pomegranate fruits

Pomegranates are a gorgeous fruit, with the promise of luscious, juicy seeds inside.  If the truth be known, however, we usually don't even bother to harvest the fruits, so they split open and the birds have a feast.  After all, is there a delicate way to eat a pomegranate?

Recently I was reminded of the Mexican tradition of using pomegranate seeds in a dish called chiles en nogada, stuffed chiles in walnut sauce.

Chiles en nogada

Several traditional restaurants in my home town of El Paso, Texas, are now featuring chiles en nogada on their menus as a seasonal dish.  I will probably have my next plate of these delicacies at a restaurant.   The recipe to prepare them is not for the faint of heart.

The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy (2000) has an extensive write-up on chiles en nogada.  One story has it that the dish was concocted with ingredients the color of the Mexican flag, green chiles, white sauce, and red pomegranate seeds, to celebrate the signing of a treaty.  Another story describes the origin of the dish as a result of the yearly harvest of poblano chiles, fruits, and walnuts.

Like many traditional recipes, many variations of chiles en nogada can be found in cookbooks and on the Internet.  Diana Kennedy makes hers with pork, tomatoes, fruit, plantains, raisins, poblano chiles, and almonds.  Other cooks use ground meat and vary the other ingredients as well.  The basic procedure is to stuff the chiles, fry them in a batter, and serve covered with the nut sauce. The finished product is decorated with pomegranate seeds and parsley.  Chiles en nogada are generally served alone on a plate as a main course, perhaps accompanied by corn tortillas.

Just in case you get inspired to make this autumn culinary delight,  I am including a recipe from the Food Network.  And if you decide to prepare this dish at home, please invite me to dinner, but after all the work is done, please.

Recipe for Chiles en Nogada

Tomatillo Sauce - Finally!

Have you ever passed by those small green tomato-looking vegetables in the produce department and wondered what they were? I have, many times. And my husband, Wayne, has asked me the same question innumerable times, "Do you know what these little green things are used for?" No, I didn't, but now I do. They are tomatillos.

Tomatillos resemble small green tomatoes but are covered with a husk. The husk is easily removed. They are a member of the nightshade family and are often used in Mexican cuisine to make green sauces. 

Craving a new taste in salsas recently, I pulled an old cookbook off the shelf,The Great Salsa 

Book by Mark Miller (1994) (ISBN 0-89815-517-7). Why had I never used this book before? 

The pictures of 100 salsas, each in a small decorative dish, were seductive.

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This is how I made Tomatillo Salsa Verde with Avocado. Starting with 15 tomatillos, I removed the husks and rinsed the tomatillos under running water, then chopped them into medium size pieces. Into the blender they went. Then I chopped three chiles serranos, leaving seeds in, and added them to the blender. (I am a wimp, so I put on disposable gloves to handle the chiles.)

Next step was to add a bunch of fresh cilantro and two tablespoons of fresh lime juice. I don’t cheat here. I buy small limes and squeeze them with my Mexican lime squeezer. A teaspoon of sugar and one of salt completed the ingredients. I hit the purée button.

When I poured the salsa out of the blender, the taste was great, unusual really, but the texture! Oh my. My salsa was watery, nothing like the picture in the cookbook. Then I noticed that there was a similar recipe in the book that called for an avocado to be added. I poured off some of the liquid, chopped an avocado, dumped everything back in the blender, and puréed again. Ah, much better. This salsa not only tasted great but looked appealing also.

We ate it on everything – chips, corn tortillas, tacos. I even caught Wayne dipping a spoon into it. I think the salsa would even be good on rice or a baked potato. And it is healthy (well, except for the chips we dipped it with, I suppose). The taste was tart and a pleasant change from our usual green chile and jalapeño salsas. And for less adventurous taste buds, the amount of chile could be reduced, but I liked the slight picante aftertaste.

Now I am remembering that I tried to grow tomatillos in the garden many years ago without knowing what I was going to do with the crop. But there was no crop. All I found growing were empty husks. Later I learned that several tomatillo plants are needed for pollination.

Only 98 more salsas from the Mark Miller book to go. Do you have a favorite salsa? If so, I would love to add it to the list..