[tschmidlin]

I just saw a sign at my local grocery store that they will be roasting hatch chiles next Friday!  I've never seen that around here, so I'm really excited to get a box.

The question then is, what do I do with them?  I'm having a bbq the next day, so I'm thinking of using them make atomic buffalo turds.  Do you think they will hold up?  What else can I do with them?  I'll also be serving pulled pork with a NC style vinegar sauce and some smoked sausages.

Any that don't get used will be vacuum sealed and frozen, no worries there

[reverseapachemaster]

My dad and I grow hatch chiles and he knows how to roast them well so I get both fresh and roasted. I use a combination of the two in a delicious chile blond, if that interests you (6 fresh, 8 roasted per 5 gallons for 1 week, but you could probably use half as much but let them sit for more time).

Hatch chiles can either be mild or hot. The mild are very mild but flavorful. The hot can be around jalepeno hot, maybe less so. Even the hot ones are generally used for a flavor rather than heat, so you can use them any way you might normally use poblano or anaheim chiles. So you can put them in anything that way, but I find they have the best flavor where they aren't hidden under a bunch of other ingredients and work really well with cheese. I just made some hatch chile and queso fresco-stuffed chicken breasts that are excellent. They could make a really interesting addition to a slaw with your BBQ. Not sure if they would shine in buffalo turds.

[hopfenundmalz]

I have learned something new today - Atomic Buffalo Turds.

Looks tasty from the Goolge search.

[nateo]

Chile verde. Like, gallons of it. Roasted Hatches were born for it.

[a10t2]

I just got mine this weekend. Made a big batch of guacamole with some, since avocados are also in season right now.

Chili verde for sure. It tends to be a really simple recipe: shredded pork, chicken stock, tomatillos, garlic. I put in one habanero to kick it up a bit.

The bigger chiles make great poppers for people who can't handle jalapeño-level piquancy. Cream cheese filling, wrapped in bacon and grilled... awesome. Edit: But apparently that's an ABT, more or less.

[jmmcfarland]

I'm a big fan of basic chile rellenos. Just longhorn cheese and relleno batter. Delicious!

[nateo]

Kenji has a recipe/technique for green chile without the Hatches, but it'd be even better if you have them
http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/01/how-to-make-great-chile-verde-no-hatch-chile.html

[euge]

Tom, I like to roast them over a burner and slip as much of the skin off with out rinsing the chiles. Then lay the chiles out on wax paper and roll them up and freeze. Then I can peel one off whenever desired.

They are rather thin-fleshed for their size so be careful roasting them in quantity- they can get overdone quite easily. IMO the "hot" isn't very hot though they can lend a very nice edge to a dish without being mouth-searing.

Also, these chiles dehydrate very well. I still have a couple pods left over from last year.

Tom, we've had them since the 8th but I haven't bought any as of yet. For what I use them for my preference is poblanos. And I can get a rather wide selection of Hatch-chile products year round compared to a couple years ago when there was only these little cans of the hot and mild chiles available.

[tschmidlin]

I like it euge, I'll package them like that.  Good idea.

Chile verde sounds good - I could do half of the butt (15 lbs total) for NC pulled pork and half as chile verde. Hmmmm . . . would it be bad to smoke the pork for the chile verde or does it really have to be cooked with the chiles and stuff?  I would shred it and then cook it further in the chile, but maybe that would throw it off.

Some ABTs, maybe shove some in a fatty, what else?  The smoker and grill will be going, we plan to be outside the whole day so I don't want to do anything that requires frying or an oven.

Thanks for the ideas, keep them coming!  Surely you guys do stuff witht them besides chile verde, right?

[nateo]

Hmmmm . . . would it be bad to smoke the pork for the chile verde or does it really have to be cooked with the chiles and stuff?  I would shred it and then cook it further in the chile, but maybe that would throw it off.

You could, but I wouldn't. You want any drippings from the pork to end up in the stew. If you braise the pork in the stew that part takes care of itself.

I also think the smoked meat flavor wouldn't mesh well with the smoked chile flavor, but I could be wrong.

[thebigbaker]

Living in the south, I was never really exposed to hatch chiles but once I moved to Denver, I became addicted.  There is a great little stand near my house that pops up this time of year and roasts them there or you can get them raw...I usually will get a lot of both!  Here's a couple of things I do with them:

1.  Green Chili - Don't think I've made it the same twice, but great comfort food while the weather gets cooler and football starts to ramp up.  Eat in a bowl, on top of an omelette, top off a burger, makes some phenomenal nachos.

2.  Green Chili Sauce - I like to caramelize some onions, add a little jalapeno (try the green chiles first, sometimes they are spicy enough by themselves,others it needs a little kick), throw in some garlic then add a little flour to make a quick roux.  Add in a little chicken stock, a little apple cider vinegar and toss in the green chilies and let simmer for about 15 minutes.  You can mix up w/ a hand blender or in a blender to get is more saucy, but what I do is blend it w/ a hand blender and add some chucks of green chiles afterwards to give the sauce more texture.  This sauce goes well with just about everything and gets better over time.  Perhaps my wife's favorite is when I use the sauce to make fresh Chilaquiles.  It's her favorite thing to wake up to on a fall/winter Sunday morning.

3.  Green Chili Strings - I like to cut the chiles up into thin slices, soak in butter milk, dredge in flour and fry them up.  We use them to top off a burger, top off our Mexican Lasagna casserole, top off the green chili, dress up breakfast quesadillas, or eat them straight.  We'll also cut them up into small rings and fry them up.  Fresh ones work better than roasted ones for frying, gives them a little snap when you bite into them.

4.  We've made jack-cheddar-green chili bread w/ some spent grains that turned out well.  Slice it up and dip into a warm bowl of green chili. 

We use them for a lot, but these are some of our favorites.  Now the question is, who out there has made a green chili beer?

[a10t2]

We use them for a lot, but these are some of our favorites.  Now the question is, who out there has made a green chili beer?

I used some in a Vienna Lager last year. It was a big hit. 8 oz of peppers (for 5 gal), de-seeded and coarsely chopped, sanitized in vodka and added after fermentation.

[euge]

I've used pulled pork for several quickie chile verde's. Works ok but instead of shredding it's better to chill the desired amount of smoked pork and then chop/cube it. Make your chile verde and add the meat at the end and only simmer it for 10 minutes or so. This way the pork remains succulent and the dish is lower-fat.

[gmac]

I'm always so jealous of your grocery options!  My pepper selection usually runs from Green Bell to the very exotic Red Bell.  Sometimes there's Scotch Bonnets (haberneros?) and jalapeno's that's it.  In my Mexican cookbook string Nateo mentions a bunch of chile's and I had to smile cause I've never heard of any of them.

Enjoy your chile's Tom and please have a Fin du Monde with them in honour of your under-privledged neighbours to the North.

[a10t2]

quickie chile verde's

Ooh... quiche chile verde sounds good...