Roasting Hatch Green Chiles and the Resulting Hatch Chile Enchiladas – New Levels of Amazing Have Been Reached

My freezer is moderately packed with delicious, roasted, seeded and chopped New Mexico Hatch Green Chile, courtesy of a 5 pound order of fresh chile from the Zia Green Chile Company.  I asked the Zia guys about how to roast the chiles at home when I picked up my order, and surprisingly their simple advice adhered to several pieces of guidance I found on the internet as well.  

You first wash the chiles in cold water to get off the dirt, and then place on a lined roasting pan.

Then roast under your broiler until well-blackened or maybe 5-6 minutes on each side (rotate sides after one side is blackened to achieve even cooking across the chiles).

This next part is the one that made me the most squeamish – placing the hot, roasted chiles into a sealed plastic bag to trap the moisture and soften up the skins.  Not sure how to avoid the plastic in the future (maybe glass container?), but something I hope to figure out.

After the chiles have steamed for 15 – 25 minutes, put on some rubber gloves for the most time-consuming part of this process – removing the skins, deseeding and stemming the chiles.  It's fairly simple to remove the skins with your hands if the chiles have steamed enough, but I found the deseeding to be the most time consuming part of the process – so many tiny seeds to get off!

I then placed approx. 1/4 cup of chopped chile onto a covered baking sheet to partially freeze the chile for an hour, and then wrapped each portion tightly in plastic to place in freezer containers.

Ok, now to the amazing Hatch Green Chile Enchiladas recipe I put together, fusing elements of my favorite Tex Mex Cheese Enchiladas recipe with an AllRecipes post.  The result was amazing – deep flavor from incredible spice without unbearable heat.  I really felt transplanted to the Southwest with this dish.  This recipe will probably use up most of my frozen chile through the rest of this year!

Hatch Green Chile Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups of roasted green chile, chopped and thawed if frozen
• 5 tbsp. olive oil, divided
• 1.5 cups chopped white onion, divided
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp. oregano
• 1/4 tsp. cumin
• 2 tbsp. flour
• 2 cups vegetable broth or water plus bouillon
• 1/2 tsp. salt, or to taste
• 12 6-inch corn tortillas
• ~8 oz. monterey jack, grated
• ~6 oz. cheddar, grated

Directions:

• Heat 3 tbsp. olive oil on medium-high heat in a large pot.  When hot, add 1 cup white onion and saute until transparent (approx. 4 – 6 minutes).  

• Then add garlic, oregano, and cumin and stir until just fragrant or 30 seconds.  

• Then whisk in the flour, until it blends and distributes among the pot ingredients.  After 2 – 3 minutes of stirring, add the vegetable broth, chile, and salt.

• Bring to a boil and then simmer for approx. 20 minutes or until sauce cooks down a bit.  Puree in a blender or with an immersion blender.  This resulted in approx. 3.5 cups of sauce, which could be used for two servings of enchiladas (I froze the leftovers for another enchilada round later in the week).

• As the sauce cools a bit, brush each sides of the tortillas with olive oil and then put a damp cloth on top of the stacked tortillas and warm in the microwave for approx. 1 minute.  This allows the tortillas to become bendable so they won't break while rolling.
• In a 9-by-13 baking pan, spread approx. 1/2 cup of sauce along the bottom and sides of the pan, and heat the oven to 450 degrees.
• One at a time, put an equal amount of cheese (approx. 1/4 cup) and a bit (approx. 1 tbsp) of remaining white onion into the centers of the tortillas, and roll tightly.  Place in the prepared pan, seam side down.

• Pour approx. 1 cup of sauce over the top, and top with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and onion.

• Cover baking dish with foil, and cook in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.  Let sit for 10 minutes outside of the oven and then serve.