Hatch, New Mexico Chiles - Tips Needed (1 Viewer)

They are overflowing at my local supermarket. I have immediate options, but I'd like to buy in bulk and milk the flavor for the winter months.

Currently I broil/rotate, then steam in a plate covered bowl; then I peel 90% of the burnt skin off and mush with a stick blender, and then refrigerate. NOt sure how long they will keep, but I will find out. ... pretty sure they will grace the next pot of gumbo.

Not yet done -  I will dry roast them in the oven at 190 for 12 hours plus, and then refrigerate - will crush them into dishes further on down the road.

What else can I do; what should I do?  Paging @wikkidpissah

freezing is the way for green chiles, if you have the room. roast, semi-peel, freeze em whole. i have never had the equipment to can, but i know people who do it and it will get those w small freezers thru the year. i do know that they can better chopped than whole.

no matter what anyone tells you, do NOT use water in any part of the peeling/putting-up of chiles. tremendous flavor & and character loss, for both the peppers and you. GL -

wikkidpissah said:

freezing is the way for green chiles, if you have the room. roast, semi-peel, freeze em whole. i have never had the equipment to can, but i know people who do it and it will get those w small freezers thru the year. i do know that they can better chopped than whole.

no matter what anyone tells you, do NOT use water in any part of the peeling/putting-up of chiles. tremendous flavor & and character loss, for both the peppers and you. GL -

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Gracias.  I have things I can toss out of the freezer to make room.

in New Mexico, a bag of frozen, roasted Hatch is a more welcome host gift than a bottle of Bordeaux or a chocolate babka

Just got in a box of fresh picked Big Jim and Sandia Hatch Peppers last week.  Have some red's coming soon.  Love this time of year.  Late summer and peppers roasting outside is magical.

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this quote from @Ron Swanson in the burger thread is the way i'd go out-of-area. The Big Jims are fat & sweet and the Sandia are lean & mean. mix & match according to recipe, both in recipes and putting-up

Can you order these from across the country? If so, what’s THE time of year to do it (lookin ahead to next year) ?

I offer nothing but jealousy. Those peppers sound incredible. 

Freezing is the way to go. They can last for a long time in freezer. We still use some that we put in some Ziplocs in the freezer in 2018.

Besides topping burgers, another easy use is making a breakfast green chile hash. Dice up some potatoes and cook in a skillet with vegetable oil. When they are crisp, add some eggs to scramble in; then add in cheese and green chile.  Serve with a tortilla  -- either on the side, or put the hash inside for a burrito.

higgins said:

Can you order these from across the country? If so, what’s THE time of year to do it (lookin ahead to next year) ?

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This is the time of year to do it. Still time. Harvest is really now through end of Sept/early Oct.

Young Guns is a good place to order from. They ship throughout the U.S.

There are probably other places to get some fresh (i.e., non-diced) delivered to you. I expect that costs more though.

Don Quixote said:

This is the time of year to do it. Still time. Harvest is really now through end of Sept/early Oct.

Young Guns is a good place to order from. They ship throughout the U.S.

There are probably other places to get some fresh (i.e., non-diced) delivered to you. I expect that costs more though.

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Looks great but yikes look at those prices!

In east Texas many of the grocery stores carry them fresh this time of year.

I roast mine over charcoal, but I do not freeze any.

The smell of hatch chili's cooking on the grill has to be a top 10 smell.

Godsbrother said:

Don Quixote said:

This is the time of year to do it. Still time. Harvest is really now through end of Sept/early Oct.

Young Guns is a good place to order from. They ship throughout the U.S.

There are probably other places to get some fresh (i.e., non-diced) delivered to you. I expect that costs more though.

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Looks great but yikes look at those prices!

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Ha! My local grocer is in the middle of a remodel and they are dumping lots of product into the bargain bins.  Just picked up 2 36-oz jars of Young Guns, one red and one green, for $3.99 each.  Use by date is Apr 2022.  I may go back and grab more.

UPDATE:  Grabbed three more of each.  According to my cipherin', that's $155 worth of product for $32.  

Our local nursery sells them by the half bushel and bushel. They have a chili roaster which is kind a rotating steel mesh cage that tosses them over a propaned fueled burner. They plop em in a big heavy weight bag and you can take em home. Me and friends make it a group project. When you get em home rub, most of the charred peels off and de-stem and de-seed. We then take about four or five whole peppers and put em in quart zip lock bags and freeze. Makes roughly a cup to a cup and a half. I thaw them and chop or even chop them up frozen for stews, chili, over eggs or whatever. They freeze really well. You might be able to fund a nursery or someone local that has a roaster like this. Takes a lot of the pain out of the process and makes your car smell like heaven for a few days. 

Jackstraw said:

Our local nursery sells them by the half bushel and bushel. They have a chili roaster which is kind a rotating steel mesh cage that tosses them over a propaned fueled burner. They plop em in a big heavy weight bag and you can take em home. Me and friends make it a group project. When you get em home rub, most of the charred peels off and de-stem and de-seed. We then take about four or five whole peppers and put em in quart zip lock bags and freeze. Makes roughly a cup to a cup and a half. I thaw them and chop or even chop them up frozen for stews, chili, over eggs or whatever. They freeze really well. You might be able to fund a nursery or someone local that has a roaster like this. Takes a lot of the pain out of the process and makes your car smell like heaven for a few days. 

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Roasting is a great joy. My wife has ordered fresh ones through the UNM Alumni Association, as they sponsor a green chile roast near us every year. We pick up a couple of trash bags with about 10 pounds in green chile in each, take them home, and then I spend the afternoon just sitting outside by the grill with a beer (or three) roasting them. My backyard certainly smells like heaven when I do that.

my favorite green chile recipes:

- green chile stew

- ropa-vieja-style beef burrito with green ranchero sauce

- chile verde cheese fries

- chicken alfredo verde, the meal i've eaten more than any other

my greatest disappointment is that green chile seems a natural flavor for wings, but i've yet to find a way to make them which lives up to my hopes

@Skylord

one of the best parts of moving to colorado

Everywhere here. I'm a fan, but struggle to make good salsa with it. Feel like the poblano is superior for green salsa.  Poke holes. 

culdeus said:

Everywhere here. I'm a fan, but struggle to make good salsa with it. Feel like the poblano is superior for green salsa.  Poke holes. 

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i dont make green salsa with them but love them in pico.

hatches, romas, cilantro, garlic salt, lime juice, vidalias. 

culdeus said:

Everywhere here. I'm a fan, but struggle to make good salsa with it. Feel like the poblano is superior for green salsa.  Poke holes. 

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Chuy's does a good job of encorporating hatch into their sauces... the Boom Boom ecnhiladas are my fave.

I get done in my garden this year, mild and medium. My first time eating them.

Great flavor, no heat 

wikkidpissah said:

my favorite green chile recipes:

- green chile stew

- ropa-vieja-style beef burrito with green ranchero sauce

- chile verde cheese fries

- chicken alfredo verde, the meal i've eaten more than any other

my greatest disappointment is that green chile seems a natural flavor for wings, but i've yet to find a way to make them which lives up to my hopes

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care to share the recipes or links?

Cowboysfan8 said:

I get done in my garden this year, mild and medium. My first time eating them.

Great flavor, no heat 

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this is not uncommon and why i never ventured to grow chiles when i was in NM and dont recommend buying seeds, even though it's the only out-of-state option that's not insanely expensive. Hatches & Belens & Chimayos are different because they've grown in Hatch, Belen, Chimayo for hundreds of years. there is definitely a "terrior", as France calls the combo of climate, soil, exposure to sun & moisture, in the growing of grapes, to it. the heat, especially the round fullness of heat that so many NM chiles have, is the first casualty of home growing.

Man, Inland Empire is everything the name says. Concrete for years. I long for soil and growth. 

Godsbrother said:

care to share the recipes or links?

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yeah - i realized when i posted that there would be asks. two probs. - i've now been several years without a steady supply of green and i'm generally a "feel" cook and have kinda lost my feel. so i will first discuss green chile sauce and expand where i can to recipes.

the key to good green chile sauce is good chiles and lard. dont bother unless you are willing to use lard and that's the same for red & green. no matter how many wonderful ingredients you add to a blenderful of reconstituted dried chiles, if you dont then fry the blendings in lard, it aint a real salsa. i am one who doesnt insist that tortillas be made w lard (tho they are better), but i'm a purist with sauces. it's chemical thing - even if i'm working with other meats than pork, if there are green chiles involved, there must be lard.

green chile sauce is roasted, peeled & seeded greens, onion, garlic sauteed in lard, dusted w flour then made saucy with liquid. but there are a number of combos within that and a couple of add-ins. i would just as soon use red onions or shallots where onions are called for but, here, it's a different sauce. good, but different. there was a time that i used different onions depending on the flavor of my chile batch. i also vote for cheapest ingredients that work cuz i am a thrifty shopper.

so let's say yellow onion (Mexican insistence on white onion is mostly for raw use), a shallot if i got one, chopped garlic, sauteeing in lard. add salt & cumin (freshly toasted & ground cumin seed is 1000x better than jarred), no competing pepper - including black, pepperoncino or chile powder. stir in chiles, dust with flower, once the flour has cooked thru add liquid. my preference is veggie stock, but water, meat stock or beer is fine too. bay leaves are a good add if you cook it a while (which i usually dont unless i'm stewing/braising something in salsa).

then there is the tomato question. the adding of them changes the name of the sauce from green chile to ranchero. i sometimes do, sometimes dont. tomatillos certainly add a sometimes-beautiful element but, if you dont cook em just right, they are a detraction. up2u. if i got good tomatoes, i wouldnt waste em in cooking. fresh tomatoes that arent as good as they looked in the store are a reasonable throw-in. canned red tomatoes add another quality and are a nice extender - depends on my mood. dont waste nice San Marzanos, it's like asking Aretha to harmonize w Billie Eilish. one sitch where overstewed storebrand tomatoes are just fine.

so lard, onions, garlic, flour, liquid to semi-thickness, ask the tomato question. that's green chile. next time i'll deal w meat and recipes.

ETA: to be clear, when i say green, i mean roasted & peeled green chile peppers. not raw. i might throw a raw chile pepper into a crock pot or sumn, but i dont work w em usually, other chile peppers are better suited to raw salsas

higgins said:

Can you order these from across the country? If so, what’s THE time of year to do it (lookin ahead to next year) ?

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I order from hatch-green-chile.com.  Expensive compared to buying local, but worth every penny.

wikkidpissah said:

my greatest disappointment is that green chile seems a natural flavor for wings, but i've yet to find a way to make them which lives up to my hopes

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This I can help with.  I call it "Green Monster". Add roasted chiles, a few cloves of garlic, and some honey. Maybe a bit of salt. Adjust ingredients to taste and beat it up good in the Vitamix until it looks like green lacquer. Apply liberally to smoked, then fried wings.

Ron Swanson said:

I order from hatch-green-chile.com.  Expensive compared to buying local, but worth every penny.

This I can help with.  I call it "Green Monster". Add roasted chiles, a few cloves of garlic, and some honey. Maybe a bit of salt. Adjust ingredients to taste and beat it up good in the Vitamix until it looks like green lacquer. Apply liberally to smoked, then fried wings.

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honeyhoneyhoneyhoneyhoney..................................................money.

gotta send to my alfalfa honey guy in Galisteo to make my first attempt perfect. garlic, raw or roasted?

grrrrreat concept & concoction!! tyvm

This is turning into a fantastic thread

Ive only picked a few and fried them slow in a little olive oil. I should have a decent haul from 4 big plants in about a week

wikkidpissah said:

honeyhoneyhoneyhoneyhoney..................................................money.

gotta send to my alfalfa honey guy in Galisteo to make my first attempt perfect. garlic, raw or roasted?

grrrrreat concept & concoction!! tyvm

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Raw. I typically use a lot.  And yes, use a good local honey. None of that might as well be Karo stuff.

green chile cooking, pt 2 -

green chile stew - i'm a non-traditionalist here, preferring chicken to pork. getting a new batch of green is one of the best reasons to boil a chicken. i brown the skin of a roaster in a pot with some oil, take it out and dump whatever spices i got in the remaining oil to bloom. Usually, it's cumin seed, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, a few allspices and paprika. chop an onion, some celery, a head of garlic in half & a jalapeno or two into the saute, let them meld, pour in a teakettle of boiling water and add the bird and some bay leaves and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. drain and cool, skim the fat from the broth.

then make some chicken soup. saute red onions, shallots,  garlic, celery, salt, pepper, cumin, smoked paprika. add a can of tomatoes, warm broth, spuds (red, best), i like carrots tho its not traditional, hominy if you want (not a fan) cook 15 minutes. add pulled chicken & green chile, any other veggies like corn or green beans and finish. the flavor of roasted Hatches only dissipate with heat so i resist cooking any longer than i have to. i'm one of those people for whom cilantro occasionally tastes like soap, so i dont use it. epazote is a nice finisher in soups for me, but i rarely have it. thicken slightly with a slurry or roux (every time i cook bacon, i stir flour into the leftover fat and cook into a roux and jar it in the fridge to use as a thickener. lasts a month, easy), serve w flour tortilas. roasted pepitos make a great garnish but i never have those either.

beef burrito - red meat and green chile dont pair well. brown meat & green chile are a major yum. so when i pair beef & green, its either heavily seared or overcooked. for beef burritos, throw a london broil in a crockpot and cook it til it shreds, like old British/Irish people do. you can get creative and make it a ropa vieja instead with olives and even raisins but, for my tastes, the more basic the better here. Big fluffy flour tortilla, smeared with w black bean refrito, a small layer of sauteed onions and red peppers, piles of shredded pot roast, roll, drown in green chile sauce, smothered in melted cheese. generiously topped with beautifully fragrant chopped fresh tomatoes. done right (like Molly's in Santa Fe used to), a strong contender for my last meal

bagel - not a big lunch guy. for me, it dont get better than a toasted bagel, a smear, fat slice of quality tomato, and a sprinkling of chopped green, maybe some fancy salt. nufced

I have nothing to add to this thread, but just reading the words “hatch chiles” makes my mouth water. So bomb. 

27 years ago my wife and I went to New Mexico for a week, on business but also to see what the land of enchantment was all about. We spent time in Albuquerque, taos and Santa Fe

My wife is not into spicy food but couldn't get enough of the Chile. It's addictive.

We bought an old New Mexico cookbook and have made several recipes over the years.

One of my buddies from Albuquerque will send me a burlap sack full of fresh chiles every fall. I roast them on my grill, then freeze them. Sometimes he'll send frozen diced Chile. But roasting them yourself is better. The smell is unbelievable. There's nothing like it.

Just a nice green Chile stew is hard to beat. But green Chile on a burger or sandwich is also fantastic.

Red Chile, I make carne adovada. It's our favorite pork dish. 

Enjoy

green chile cooking, pt 3:

chile verde cheese fries - bring out the lard again, big tub. put all of it but about an inch in a crock pot on high with about a half cup of water (counterintuitive, eh?, but it promotes an even cook.carve up a pork butt into handful-sized pieces,  season w salt & cumin (good rub),and put em into the pot when the lard has melted. throw in a buncha garlic, several bay leaves, a halved orange. cook an hour, add a can of sweetened condensed milk, a canela, cook another hour, then check til it's cooked thru to your satisfaction. mira, carnitas!

roast a buncha tomatillos, a big head of garlic (halved), and a coupla onions in the oven, stick em (squeezing the garlic out of their husks) in the blender with an equal amount of roasted green chiles, blend til semi-smooth. put the last bit of lard in a big fry pan, take your pork out of the crock pot w a slotted spoon, break the pork up a little bit and put it in the fry pan, toss it around until it gets some color and a little crispness on the edges. dump in your blenderbatch and stir together. mira, chile verde!

cook your fries, sauce em up w your chile verde, throw on a pile or pack of mexican cheeses and melt under the broiler. mira, chile verde cheese fries!!

- or -

chicken alfredo verde - put an onion, coupla cloves of garlic and a cup or two of green in a blender and whirr smooth. melt a stick of butter in a pan, add the blendings, once they are cooked up a lil, stir in flour until it's just short of clumpy, stir in broth of any kind until the mixture becomes the consistency of frosting, stir in warm whole milk til you have a nice even sauce. at this point it's gravy - mmmm, yum,  biscuits & green gravy (great w chorizo & apple chunks) - it becomes alfredo when you add grated cheese. i usually just stir in a bag of Sargento 5-cheese Italian blend. add roasted chicken, or crumbled sausage or.............if you prefer cheese fries saucy more'n melty, stir in your carnitas (and maybe thicken w xtra cheese) and pour it all over your fries. mira, pueblosabor!!

wikkidpissah said:

this quote from @Ron Swanson in the burger thread is the way i'd go out-of-area. The Big Jims are fat & sweet and the Sandia are lean & mean. mix & match according to recipe, both in recipes and putting-up

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Stupid question time

Is Sandra Hatch a variety of pepper? I ordered my Hatch seeds from Sandia seed co., does that mean I grew Sandia Hatch?

Other question, I picked a pile of peppers that I plan on roasting and freezing whole tomorrow. After roasting and peeling I should remove stem and seeds or no ?

Cowboysfan8 said:

Stupid question time

Is Sandra Hatch a variety of pepper? I ordered my Hatch seeds from Sandia seed co., does that mean I grew Sandia Hatch?

Other question, I picked a pile of peppers that I plan on roasting and freezing whole tomorrow. After roasting and peeling I should remove stem and seeds or no ?

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they werent a thing when i lived in NM (moved to VT 8 yrs ago). dont mean they aint, just never bought a Sandia (the name of the mts that rise from Albq) pepper while i was there & i woulda heard. Hatch seeds, Hatch pepper - your own terrior will determine the result, but Hatches will be inclined to be more sharply hot than other seeds.

remove stems (saves space and wont puncture bag), but i dont de-seed til i thaw em. GL -

wikkidpissah said:

they werent a thing when i lived in NM (moved to VT 8 yrs ago). dont mean they aint, just never bought a Sandia (the name of the mts that rise from Albq) pepper while i was there & i woulda heard. Hatch seeds, Hatch pepper - your own terrior will determine the result, but Hatches will be inclined to be more sharply hot than other seeds.

remove stems (saves space and wont puncture bag), but i dont de-seed til i thaw em. GL -

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parasaurolophus said:

i dont make green salsa with them but love them in pico.

hatches, romas, cilantro, garlic salt, lime juice, vidalias. 

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 Making some hot hatch pepper pico this weekend, can’t wait. Pretty much using those exact ingredients except I’m tossing in some scallions and using white onion rather than vidalia.

August is a divine month for produce with hatch chile season and Colorado peach season overlapping.

caustic said:

 Making some hot hatch pepper pico this weekend, can’t wait. Pretty much using those exact ingredients except I’m tossing in some scallions and using white onion rather than vidalia.

August is a divine month for produce with hatch chile season and Colorado peach season overlapping.

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would not be surprised if green & peach made a hella pandowdy together

Roasted a dozen and a half each of mild hatch green chiles, hatch green medium Big Jim and Anaheim from my garden today. I watched a video on YouTube of a guy roasting them on his pitboss , tried his way (with the flamethrower cover closed) but it didn’t work. At best the peppers got very small grill marks. So I ended up doing batches like that and turning them until they just started to soften then pulled the cover off the flame and roasted them in small batches. 20-30 seconds per side and they were beautifully charred. 
 

I wish I knew how to post pics here.

Mine so far have peeled very easy. I have a batch individually freezing on a sheet pan, another batch ready to freeze and another cooling. 
 

https://imgur.com/a/8XvaQ82
 

Loving this thread. Just used up the last of my chiles from the ristra we bought in Hatch last fall. The good news is we're planning to head that way and pick up a couple bags this October.

Cowboysfan8 said:

https://imgur.com/a/8XvaQ82
 

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i swear i smelled those

wikkidpissah said:

i swear i smelled those

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thanks for the tips