Chile Rellenos Made Easy, Cooking Light June 2011
Baked Black Beans with Chorizo, Cooking Light June 2011
Agua Fresca de Pepino, Cooking Light June 2010
Served with brown rice
It took about an hour and a half to make all this food. You'll want to zoom into this one:
About a year ago, a new Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurant opened up near us. This is a big deal for New England, and we were quite happy. We usually get the chile rellanos and chimichanga and share. So when I saw this recipe to make my own chile rellenos, I wanted to make it for G while he is here for just a few days before starting his internship. I paired it with baked black beans. These are each hour-long recipes, and the timelines to make them only partially overlapped. But actually, the brown rice took the longest to make...
The reviews on the chile rellenos all think that it's good, but all wonder what about this is "easy." I think it's the fact that the salsa contains salsa verde instead of being completely from scratch. But there are still many steps. Onions, tomatoes, spices, and salsa verde are simmered together and then blended. The chiles are charred, placed in a bag to steam a bit until they can be peeled and seeded, then stuffed with cheeses. Then, you whip up egg whites to stiff peaks, fold in the egg yolks, and dip the stuffed chiles in flour, egg, and corn meal. This gets fried for a few minutes, then baked for a few more. Nothing's really difficult, per-say, but it does require many steps and dirties many dishes.
The beans are not very complicated-- it's just onion, garlic, and serrano pepper sautéed then mixed with canned beans and broth, mashed, and topped with cheese and some chorizo (cooked earlier). I accidentally used up all the tomato for the salsa because I didn't see it at the bottom of the ingredient list for this dish. So that was one deviation from the recipe. I don't think it should have baked 30 minutes as suggested, because everything is cooked through and all that really needs to happen is for the cheese to melt. But maybe the cheese getting crispy is the goal? Or maybe with fresh tomato on top it wouldn't be so toasty.
The agua fresca (the green liquid in the cup in the background) was kind of nice, but G didn't care much for his. I didn't notice the part about it "brewing" overnight, so we decided maybe we shouldn't strain it lest it end up just as unflavored water... this meant that a bit of seranno pepper was still floating around, so every few sips you'd get a zinger. I thought it was good, though. There is a sushi restaurant I like near us that serves water from a pitcher with cucumber and maybe some melon cut up in it, and it's oh so refreshing.
G says to save the bean and chile recipes, although we also felt a bit like we might as well just pay $7 and get it at the restaurant a block away... save some time and some dishes. But I think if you served this meal at a dinner party, it would be a big hit and people would be impressed.
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