In all the years I lived in NJ, two things I could never find were tri-tip and Hatch chilis. And I searched hard for both.
I previously posted that I recently moved back to my native Idaho, this time way up north in the panhandle. Imagine my delight in finding tri-tip everywhere; we even have a couple of tri-tip food trucks in town. I've been grilling tri-tip about once a week since we moved.
I was also happy to see fresh Hatch chilis in the store, and even happier when I saw that the Safeway down the hill from us was doing a two-day Hatch chili event. They had two big propane-fired rotary roasters running outside the store, and as soon as each batch was done a crew bagged them up for sale--at $1.49 lb! They had hundreds of boxes of chilis ready to roast. I left with 8 lbs, mild, medium, and hot, and they were still warm when I got them home.
I'd planned to make a Hatch chili stew, and started with 3 lbs pork roast, cubed, floured and browned. That went into the crock pot with 2 cups chicken stock, a diced onion, 3 cloves diced garlic, two cans of Rotel tomatoes with habanero, cumin, salt, and pepper. The photo below shows the ingredients before the star of the show was added, about 12 oz roasted Hatch chilis (mix of mild and medium), seeds removed, and diced. This cooked for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.
I served the stew with fresh guacamole, and margaritas. The flavor of the stew was incredible...complex, smokey, delicious...and a good bit spicier than I had anticipated! I now have seven pounds of Hatch chilis frozen, so it will be fun figuring out what to do with them over the winter months.
I previously posted that I recently moved back to my native Idaho, this time way up north in the panhandle. Imagine my delight in finding tri-tip everywhere; we even have a couple of tri-tip food trucks in town. I've been grilling tri-tip about once a week since we moved.
I was also happy to see fresh Hatch chilis in the store, and even happier when I saw that the Safeway down the hill from us was doing a two-day Hatch chili event. They had two big propane-fired rotary roasters running outside the store, and as soon as each batch was done a crew bagged them up for sale--at $1.49 lb! They had hundreds of boxes of chilis ready to roast. I left with 8 lbs, mild, medium, and hot, and they were still warm when I got them home.
I'd planned to make a Hatch chili stew, and started with 3 lbs pork roast, cubed, floured and browned. That went into the crock pot with 2 cups chicken stock, a diced onion, 3 cloves diced garlic, two cans of Rotel tomatoes with habanero, cumin, salt, and pepper. The photo below shows the ingredients before the star of the show was added, about 12 oz roasted Hatch chilis (mix of mild and medium), seeds removed, and diced. This cooked for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.
I served the stew with fresh guacamole, and margaritas. The flavor of the stew was incredible...complex, smokey, delicious...and a good bit spicier than I had anticipated! I now have seven pounds of Hatch chilis frozen, so it will be fun figuring out what to do with them over the winter months.
