It is That Time of The Year! Hatch Chile Festival, Baby!

By jen

woo woo

The Demure One loves her some Hatch chiles.

Went to The H.E.B. on the way home from work Friday and was nearly squealing with delight when I saw the guys out front roasting Hatch Green chiles. To say I love these little jewels is an understatement. They are the king of chiles in my opinion and I love chiles.

A few years back Kat and I started counting the months until August when our H.E.B. Central Market would start the Annual Hatch Chile Festival where they have Hatch Chiles roasted as well as sausages made with the chiles, ground beef with the chiles, corn muffins, breads, just about everything with the Hatch chiles mixed in. They range in heat from mild to oh shit but the ones we get here are pretty much mild or medium heat in my opinion.

As we speak I have a green chile stew simmering on the stove and my house smells amazing. Pork loves Hatch chiles. The Demure One loves pork and Hatch so it is just a match made in heaven. I also use them in my World’s Greatest Chile con Queso. Do not doubt the deliciousness of my queso recipe. It is legendary. There are only three, maybe four people on the planet who know how I make it and perhaps two people know the secret ingredient that makes all the difference. Suffice it to say there isn’t a single tomato or tomato like substance in it.

I also use them to make rajas con crema substituting half the poblanos for Hatch greens. Mmmm rajas. Cannot go wrong with something if it has heavy whipping cream, cheese and chiles in it. Seriously, if you cannot get on board with that, just hang yourself now, you need to be removed from the herd.

I keep forgetting to tell Kat they are roasting the chiles at our local H.E.B. so we do not have to make the pilgrimage uptown this year. One thing is a downer though, I do not have room in my freezer for the usual case of mild and case of hot we normally buy. Damn damn damn…

We usually buy a case of each on the assumption we will pack them, freeze them, and have them until next year. Heh, we are usually out of them by the holidays. Hell I think I went through a case over the holidays alone.

I have never been a bread stuffing person, I was raised by Cajuns and we do rice dressing… hell we do rice everything, so bread stuffing was always something those crazy white white folks made to go with their mashed potatoes and turkey. Ugh. Thanksgiving for this Cajun’s family is all about how many different ways you can cook rice, and the only acceptable potato dish is homemade potato salad; preferably with a homemade mayonnaise, which is then topped with gravy before digging in. Anyway, Kat makes an amazing green chile stuffing and I have started to really look forward to that as much as the shrimp and rice I usually make that time of year.

So, I will stop blathering and suggest to everyone out there with access to these bad boys of the chile world to get crackin’ and stock up. They are available readily during Aug-Sept. Get ‘em roasted then peel ‘em, dice ‘em, and freeze ‘em. Mmmmm

The Demure One (Goddamn google fuknuts…)