Food52 Community Pick: Fire-Roasted Hatch Chile and Serrano Pepper Salsa

Hatch Chile Fire-Roasted Salsa

I’m happy to announce I have made it to the Community Pick level in the Food52 contest again for one of my recipes! No need to vote at this time as that doesn’t happen unless it makes it to the final two.

You can head over there to read it here ———-> Fire-Roasted Hatch Chile and Serrano Pepper Salsa

I have hopes to post a new recipe for you later today before I head out tomorrow to visit some wonderful friends at their new ocean-view house they built on the coast of Yachats, Oregon. But if not, I have not left you high and dry for the week.

 

Pico de Gallo Baked Chicken

Pico de Gallo Baked Chicken

This was hands down my best new baked chicken dish — EVER! I was so absolutely nervous to feed this to my family but we all were shocked by how good this was. I was chagrined I took the time to reduce the sauce after it came out of the oven as I thought it came out too soupy, but then we were all clambering to add more sauce to our plates to sop up with the thick, crusty bread. Reducing the sauce is not necessary, so I skipped that step in the instructions. You won’t be disappointed.

Now, how to shock and amaze your taste buds:

Pico de Gallo Baked Chicken
Adapted from pico de gallo oven chicken @allyskitchen.com

1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved
Ground pepper and sea salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
1/4 cup white wine
3/4 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
3/4 cup pico de gallo mild salsa (I used Trader Joe’s)
1/4 teaspoon dried red chile flakes
3 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
1 tablespoon capers
1/2 large lemon, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add the chicken breasts to a large bowl and sprinkle with the pepper, salt or Mrs. Dash, and flour. Toss to coat.

Browned Chicken Pieces

In a large skillet over medium high heat, add the oil and brown the chicken on each side. Transfer the chicken to an oven-proof lidded casserole dish.

Deglaze the skillet with the wine then pour over the chicken. Add the chicken broth, pico de gallo, chile flakes, garlic, and top with the lemon slices and capers.

Pico de Gallo Chicken Ready to Bake

Cover with foil then top with the lid. Bake for 50 minutes, then remove to the stove top and let sit for about 15 minutes without taking off the lid. When ready, remove lid and serve with thick, hot crusty bread for sopping up the juices.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Hatch Chile Fire-Roasted Salsa

Hatch Chile Fire-Roasted Salsa

We FINALLY got Hatch chiles in my dinky town in Oregon! What took them so long? (Although I hear Whole Foods has brought them here every year for a while but I don’t live on that side of town. It was my LOCAL grocery store that just switched from Alberton’s to Haggen. (Although they are way overpriced IMHO. I’ve started shopping out of my beaten path for budget reasons.)

Anyhoot, I bought several of these to roast and make a Fire-Roasted Hatch Chile Salsa. After I did that, I went back for more and roasted a few more pounds for the freezer, because, why not? I can add them to soups and stews all fall/winter long. Yay!

Veggies Ready to Roast

This wonderful batch of Hatch salsa was served with some of my bestest friends for a BBQ of grilled Texas Slow-Cooked Brisket and Pork Babyback Ribs. My tomato plants didn’t have enough ripe ones for this, but I had an abundance of ripe and almost ripe Serrano peppers in the garden. Sometimes life is so good to you! (Please, adjust amount of Serrano peppers according to taste. Just the Hatch chile’s heat might be enough for you, but I like SPICY!)

Here is what I did:

Hatch Chile Fire-Roasted Salsa

4 Hatch chiles
4 Roma tomatoes
Half a large sweet or white onion
3 to 6 Serrano chile peppers (I ended up using only 3)
3 cloves garlic
1 or 2 squeezed limes (to taste)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Heat your grill to high (rub it with olive oil first), or set your broiler on high. Add the Hatch chiles, tomatoes, onion, Serranos, and garlic to the grill or a baking sheet. Place on grill or in oven on top rack. Cook and turn over several times until blistered all over (about 20 minutes or so).

Roasting the Vegetables ~ My onion and garlic blew out the white settings, couldn’t get it to adjust, darn it!

Remove everything off the heat, then place the peppers in a paper bag for about 10 minutes. Let the tomatoes and garlic sit until cool enough to handle, then peel the skins off all of them and add to a blender. Also add the grilled/broiled onion, lime juice, vinegar, and salt and ground black pepper to the blender.

Salsa Ready to Blend

Blend that deliciousness right up! Taste and season with more lime and salt accordingly. Chill until ready to serve with tortilla chips. Leftovers can be used with eggs, on a salad, or whatever!

Here’s a photo of my friends and family enjoying the salsa and chips (and beer) before the food feast. Of course, I am never in these as the photographer, lol!

p.s I am away for over a week camping, fishing, and crabbing. I hope you hang with me until then!

Pre-BBQ Feast

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

 

Unorthodox Enfrijoladas

Enfrijoladas ~ photo by Adam J. Holland ~ The Unorthodox Epicure

Well, these are not really unorthodox, they are actually quite authentic. But this new recipe came to me from my good foodie friend Adam J. Holland, who has a most interesting foodie blog called “The Unorthodox Epicure” with a fun sidebar called “Confessions of an Aspiring Food Snob.” He is neither unorthodox nor snobby, that I can tell. But he’s a fellow Texan and cooks some great authentic Tex-Mex as well as authentic Mexican food, therefore he’s OK in my book, ya heah????

I made these last night, and hoo-boy, were they delicious! My entire family enjoyed them. It took hardly any prep time and cooked up pretty darn quick. That’s a win-win in my book! I halved the recipe since there are only three of us, but it still ended up making 8 Enfrijoladas (although I did add both grilled chicken AND cheese to the insides of them). There was one left in the end. All thumbs up. Thank you Adam!

I did take some initial prep photos thinking I might actually do a blog with my own photos on this, but a crazy thunderstorm rolled through as we were cooking this all outside on the propane burner/grill, so by the time we got it all moved inside there was no time with a hungry family to do any more foodie shots after having do all that and preheat the oven.

So sit right back, click on the link below, and enjoy his blog and recipe:

The Unorthodox Epicure Enfrijoladas Recipe

Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

Spicy Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

I went twice — mind you TWICE — to my local store that caters to the Hispanic community each day this past weekend to find flank steak for this salad, and both times they said they had sold out already! I obviously need to get to the store earlier in the day if I want that cut of meat.

Nonetheless, I didn’t want to travel to another grocery so I settled on super-thin cut bottom round, which was labeled “for Carne Asada” so figured that would work just fine. I was planning on marinating the meat anyways in a lime juice concoction, which helps tenderize the meat. The idea to make steak salad started with wanting to use up the rest of my Roasted Tomato Salsa  from the other day. It’s been in the high 70s/low 80s  here the past few days and just love to grill in this kind of weather.

Beef Marinating in Chile Lime Sauce

There are so many things you can do with a salad like this! Some grilled corn would be great on it,  but it’s not quite yet corn season here yet, but settled on adding avocado, black beans seasoned with cumin and some of the salsa and lime juice, halved grape tomatoes, grilled red and yellow peppers, green onion, and black olives. Oh! And the finishing touches of my Roasted Tomato Salsa, crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips.

Fresh Red Leaf Lettuce and Baby Spinach

This was the first time I’d ever bought Cotija cheese, but had seen it used in many Mexican recipes. It’s a brick of cheese that crumbles up like blue cheese, and my first taste realized why it goes so well with Mexican cooking! Such a fabulous “tang” to it! From what I researched it keeps really well too, so my somewhat spendy purchase for 10 ounces of it should keep in the fridge for quite a while and am looking forward to using it in other dishes.

Steak Marinade

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or regular vinegar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon New Mexico Red or Ancho Chile powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Black pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 pound thin-sliced bottom or top round steak (or flank steak if you can find it!)

Whisk all the ingredients except the steak in a medium glass bowl.  Add the thinly sliced steak and let marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour but up to 3 or 4 hours. Mix around when you can. A half hour before cooking, remove from the fridge and let set to come to room temperature.

Zesty Grilled Southwest Steak Salad

Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

1 bell pepper (we used 1/2 red and 1/2 yellow), deseeded and halved
Spray olive oil
Garlic powder
Marinated steak (recipe above)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained and seasoned with 1 tablespoon salsa, squeeze of lime wedge,  and 1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 cup of mixed greens per person (we used red leaf lettuce and baby spinach)
1 6-ounce can black olives
3 green onions, chopped roughly
1/2 carton grape tomatoes, halved
1 avocado, peeled and sliced
Roasted Tomato Salsa recipe, for dressing, or any salsa you have on hand
Crumbled Cotija cheese, for garnish
Cilantro, for garnish
Corn tortilla chips, for garnish

Preheat grill to high, spray the bell pepper with olive oil both sides and sprinkle with garlic powder.  Place on grill 20 minutes before ready to assemble the salad.  Meanwhile, mix up the black beans, salsa, lime,  and cumin, and set aside. After 10 minutes flip the peppers over. Now place the thin-sliced marinated steak on the grill and cook each side 3 to 4 minutes, then remove and tent with foil. Remove the peppers from the grill and slice  thin.

Now take the steak and slice thin across the grain. Add your greens to a bowl, assemble the vegetables over it (don’t forget anything, that’s easy to do!), then top with the steak. Add the Roasted Tomato Salsa for dressing, then the cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips for garnish. This is a great dish to mix and combine any number of fresh vegetables you may have on hand. Olé!

Roasted Tomato Salsa with Ancho Chiles

Roasted Tomato Salsa with Chicken and Rice

After taking a short break this week from cooking, I decided to plunge head on last night and marinated, roasted, grilled, and boiled to end up with some amazing chicken tacos on our plates. So many flavors danced in my mouth! Smoky, tangy, spicy, a hint of sweet. It took a bit of choreography to get this all ready at approximately the same time, but any of the components could always be made ahead of time separately and reheated (if needed) for serving.

Tomatoes Chiles and Onions Ready to Roast

We had our first sunny, pleasant day in about two weeks and knew I wanted to grill some chicken and settled on Grilled Cilantro Lime Chicken. I had also (don’t laugh) taken my Ninja food processor to our RV camp last weekend and made some delicious roasted tomato salsa. I tell you that was a challenge to roast in our dinky RV toaster oven! Last night I decided to kick it up a notch and add some dried Ancho chiles. Wow! It turned an awesome salsa into an amazing awesome salsa. So I figured I would make the salsa and we could assemble some chicken tacos since I also had a ripe avocado. Last, my husband asked if I could also make some Cilantro Lime Rice, and I obliged.

Roasted Tomatoes, Chiles and Onions

If there’s only one thing you could make today, try your hand at this roasted salsa. You don’t need to have tacos to enjoy it, just grab a bag of tortilla chips and dig in!

Roasted Tomato Salsa with Ancho Chiles

2 dried Ancho chiles
4 Roma tomatoes
1/2 large jalapeño pepper
1/2 serrano pepper
1-inch thick slice of a large, sweet onion, quartered
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Olive oil
Squeeze of 1 or 2 lime wedges
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup cilantro

Place Ancho chiles in a glass bowl, and pour boiling water over them. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes, jalapeño and serrano peppers in half (deseed the peppers) and place them face down on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Add the onions and garlic, then drizzle some olive oil over the top of everything. Set your oven rack about four inches from the broiler,  and place the pan in the oven on broil. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes until the tomatoes and peppers are charred. The onions didn’t seem to want to char much but they did soften up.

Add the contents of the pan to a food processor and pulse to break up. My Ninja is so small I didn’t have room to add the Ancho chiles until I did that. If you have a larger food processor you could add them at the same time.  Anyways, take the Ancho chiles out of the water and remove the stem and seeds, and add them and the rest of the ingredients. Puree until the consistency of your choice. Serve warm, or chill until ready to eat.

Grilled Chicken Taco with Rice, Salsa and Avocado

p.s. Here is a picture of the Ancho chiles. Ancho chiles are actually dried Pasilla peppers, and can be found under either name, or both.

Ancho Pasilla Peppers

Roasted Tomatillo, Poblano, and Serrano Sauce (Over Chicken Enchiladas)

Chicken Enchiladas with Roasted Tomatillo, Poblano, and Serrano Sauce

Happy New Year! This was one of those OMIGOSH recipes I came across when I decided to make my chicken enchiladas for my cousin that was in town visiting the other day. I happened to have a poblano pepper in the fridge, and wasn’t sure how spicy my cuz could take his food, so scaled down the serrano peppers and added a poblano. Boy howdy, was this tomatillo sauce so good over the enchiladas. The original recipe/method for the sauce came from Rick Bayless. I’ve made my own tomatillo sauce for years ever since my seester in Austin introduced me to cooking those green little gems, but I always boiled them in water or chicken broth. Roasting the peppers bring out an entire new flavor sensation, and then the additional step to “fry” the sauce in a cast iron skillet just put this over the top.

My camera’s battery went dead just as I was about to take a photo of the simmering sauce, dang it! It was so beautiful just bub-bub-bubbling away in the cast iron skillet. But my cousin was expected within the hour and had to get everything assembled and cooked, so you get a before and after shot of the tomatillo sauce. I made my usual chicken enchiladas for this, recipe here. I made and assembled the enchiladas before making the sauce, otherwise I’d be running around the kitchen like mad trying to do everything at once. You can also just make this sauce and chow down on it with tortilla chips as an appetizer. If you don’t have any New Year’s Resolutions for 2013, then add “Make that crazy-good roasted tomatillo sauce” to your list. Trust me.

Tomatillos, Serrano, and Poblano Ready to Roast

Roasted Tomatillo, Serrano, and Poblano Sauce
(adapted from Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen)

1 pound tomatillos (about 10 to 12)
1 serrano chile
1 poblano chile
1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 cups chicken broth, homemade from the chicken for the enchilada
1 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

Chicken Enchiladas Assembled

Peel the husks from the tomatillos and scrub the sticky stuff off with a potato scrubber under running water.  On a large baking sheet, add the tomatillos and peppers and broil in the oven for about 20 minutes until the skins are blistered and the tomatillos have turned soft. Flip them over about halfway through. Remove from oven, and place the poblano in a paper bag and let sit for about 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the stem off the serrano pepper, slit it open and remove the seeds. Using tongs, add the tomatillos and serrano to a large blender or food processor. Cut and squeeze the juice from the lime into the blender. Now remove the poblano from the bag, chop off the stem, de-seed, and peel the skin off of it. Add it to the blender and pulse a few times until everything is chunky. Next, heat a large cast iron skillet to medium-high heat, add the tablespoon of oil, and cook the chopped onions until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic to the skillet in the last few minutes of cooking. Now add the cooked onion and garlic to the tomatillo/pepper mixture, and blend until almost smooth. Add a little bit more oil back to the heated skillet turned down to medium heat, then pour the tomatillo sauce into the skillet. “Fry” the sauce for about 10 minutes, stirring often until it starts to thicken and darken. Next, slowly add the chicken broth, stirring occasionally, and cook for at least 10 or 15 more minutes until the sauce has thickened again and starts to bubble up like the hot mud springs at Yellowstone. Really!  Last, add the chopped cilantro and stir to combine. Now your wonderfully yummy roasted sauce awaits your enchiladas or chips. Or heck, just eat some right out of the skillet with a spoon. I did.