Re: [CH] New Mexican Chiles? What are they? What do I buy?
ChileBuzz (chilebuzz@earthlink.net)
Sat, 22 Jan 2005 15:05:40 -0500
A great big THANKS to EVERYONE who responded.
Your comments are enormously helpful and interesting. Learned a lot.
You've given me truly useful info defining the "New Mexican Chiles" and
interpreting recipes' intent and choosing best substitutions. Now I feel
as if I can go find the "right" peppers, and give the recipes a fair shot
at coming out as intended. Who needs Hah-vahd? I've got youse guys!
Yeah, generic names are the pretty much the norm for labelling, if the
chiles are labelled at all. But after seeing habs labelled as jals, and
jals labelled as serranos, I pretty much lost faith in grocery store
labelling. Asking the produce manager would be sensible all right, ;-)
but finding one is about as challenging as finding good chiles! Dunno
where these guys disappear to. LOL. I think I must shop when they're all
on break or gone to lunch or something. Except at Fresh Fields (Whole
Foods) where they knock themselves out to help customers ... but haven't
seen a good selection of fresh chiles there ... amazing selection of exotic
produce but limited in chiles.
In addition to the peppers I named before, I do see Anaheims from time to
time, as well as other unlabelled peppers that meet the descriptions you've
given me. Have never tried cooking with Anaheims (or even poblanos, for
that matter). Mostly so far I've only tried fresh jalapenos, serranos and
thai bird, and of course canned green chiles that I add to all kinds of
dishes on the fly.
I have eaten the El Paso brand canned green chiles for years, but recently
spotted cans of Hatch's green chiles, so bought some of those. Very nice.
Just in time as I was beginning to notice more pieces of tough outer skin
showing up in the El Paso chopped chiles. Ugh. I switched to the whole
chiles, which helped. But the Hatch canned chiles are better yet. Most
of the recipes in the cookbook call for fresh chiles, which I'd rather use
when possible. I hadn't even thought about the canned Hatch green chiles
being a possible substitute, so that's a good thought, too.
Chris, I'd love to know where you get those chiles; will email you offlist.
We're in an apartment with loud obnoxious smoke alarm that would make my
neighbors awfully mad (and perhaps scare them) if I tried smoking chiles.
Boy, would I love to smoke some jalapenos. Heavenly stuff. But chiles
freeze pretty good, don't they? I can't fit 50 lbs into my little freezer
compartment, but am willing to devote a fair share of it to good chiles
<grin>
ChileBuzz