Potato and Green Chile Stew

 

Back in August, I went to Whole Foods and bought every Hatch green chile they had out that day. It was only about 25 peppers, which I guess in retrospect is a sort of crazy amount of peppers to buy from a Whole Foods in Boston. If, however, you happened to be shopping for produce in Hatch, New Mexico at the time, 25 peppers may seem a paltry number. When I tweeted about buying them, friends from the southwest commented on the dreamy smells that waft through the town, filling the air with the aroma of roasted chiles, and confessed to buying pounds and pounds at a time (already roasted and peeled by the roadside vendor!) to eat througout the year. Wouldn't it be grand to live in a place where you can buy delicious roasted chiles from abuelas with carts on the side of the road? A small town famous for it's delicious produce? With a yearly festival celebrating peppers? And what a pepper it is, justifiably famous for its sweet heat and intensely green aroma.

Or maybe I'm just getting sentimental because I placed my first seed order of the year this afternoon, and I'm positively yearning for spring, for something fresh and verdant and spicy. This afternoon I saw three trees with buds on them! It's almost time to start seedlings! Daylight Savings ends in less than a month! I find that cooking from the freezer is a nice reminder that these dark, cloudy days of winter are not forever. If you didn't go nuts and roast and freeze a bunch of Hatch chiles last year when you had the chance, you might try making this stew with the canned variety, or using anaheim peppers if you can find them in stores now.

Potato and Green Chile Stew
adapted from Deborah Madison's What We Eat When We Eat Alone
Yes, I know I'm on a D-Mad kick. I can't help it if the woman's a genius with vegetables! Obviously this is scaled up from a one-person meal.

serves 4-6


4-6 long green chiles or poblano chiles, roasted and peeled
3 tablespoon sunflower seed oil or other vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
3 pounds (4-5 medium) russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 1/2-inch chunks
Salt and pepper
4 cup chicken stock, vegetable stock or water (I used vegetables stock)
Sour cream to finish
Chopped cilantro to finish

Coarsely chop the chiles. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat, add the onion and stir frequently. Cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the coriander, cumin, garlic, and potatoes, followed by the chile along with a teaspoon of salt and stir. Let this all sizzle for a minute or two, then add the liquid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer.

Simmer all together about 25 minutes until the potatoes are completely softened. Taste and adjust seasoning (mine needed more salt and some pepper). Using a potato masher or the back of a spoon, mash up a few of the potatoes to thicken the stew. 


To serve, ladle into bowls and top with a plop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro if you like.

Shrimp Gumbo

So you may have heard there's a big football game tonight. One of the teams has never actually made it to the Super Bowl, so it's a pretty big deal for them. I like that, the underdog story, and I guess I'm a little bit hoping the Saints take it home today. On the other hand, I think Peyton Manning is pretty hilarious -not on the field, then he's just sort of annoying, what with all the finger licking and beating the Patriots- but in those Sony ads with Justin Timberlake.

When my team's not playing, I usually watch the game anyway, but today happens to be my birthday (the big 2-7, whooop!) and we're going out to dinner. That's why I don't have a Super Bowl Snacks! post for you today. Instead, I bring you the humble gumbo. It starts with a proper roux, fat and flour cooked together to bring out the best of both, then the addition of the holy trinity of celery, bell pepper and onion. Add a little stock, some chopped tomatoes and a healthy dose of cayenne pepper, toss in a few quick-cooking shrimp at the end, and serve the whole thing over rice. Bam! (sorry) you've got yourself one heck of a meal.

Shrimp Gumbo
adapted from Mark Bittman in the New York Times
serves 4-6

Mr. Bittman made his gumbo this week with scallops, but I had shrimp in the freezer. I also used marjoram instead of oregano because (you guessed it) that's what I had.

1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped (I added half a red pepper because... I had one in the fridge)
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Salt and black pepper
2 to 3 cups vegetable or chicken stock, or water
2 cups chopped tomatoes with their juice (canned are fine)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried
1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, or 1 teaspoon dried (use oregano if that's what you have)
2 bay leaves
Cayenne to taste (start with a scant 1/4 teaspoon, go up from there)
1 pound shrimp, shelled and de-veined

In a dutch oven or other heavy pot, melt the butter and oil together over medium heat. When the butter is melted, add the flour by sprinkling or sifting it over the surface of the fat. Start stirring, and keep stirring for 15-20 minutes until it starts to smell nutty and darkens in color. There are those who would say it's not a true roux if it's not chestnut brown, but I say oh shush, this smells awesome. You may  have to adjust the heat a little lower to keep the roux from burning. Add the onions, celery, and bell pepper, season with salt and pepper and cook another ten minutes until the vegetables have softened.

Add the stock, tomatoes, thyme, marjoram, bay leaves and cayenne pepper, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat so the gumbo simmers. Allow to simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes until the gumbo thickens and reduces slightly. Taste for seasoning (you may need more cayenne). Add the shrimp, and give them a couple of minutes to cook through. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaves, and serve the gumbo over rice.

Hatch Chiles and Hoarding

Last week while I was in Maine with Adam's parents, just us girls (his mom, my mom, and me) went out and about in my tiny little hometown to do some shopping. We hit a lovely gift store, where I bought a fruit basket for my new kitchen, and an art gallery (so small it has no website, OMG), where Adam's mom bought some beautiful jewelry. We also stopped at my mom's happy place: The Good Life Market. She is such a loyal customer that when she walks in the door, the kid behind the counter says "Hi Suzanne! You want coffee?" and when she says "Hi Ian! Yes please!" he starts making a decaf-nonfat-extra-hot-mocha-latte-with-only-one-pump-of-chocolate-and-no-whipped-cream. WITHOUT HER HAVING TO SAY ANYTHING. Seriously, if you're in the Sebago area of Maine, get thee to the Good Life posthaste. They're great people.

ANYWAY. I got some pickles while we were there. Not just dilled and garlicked cucumbers, but pickled fiddleheads and dilly beans. I've never had dilly beans before, but I love the sound and the idea of them, so I brought them on home to Boston and stuck them in the cupboard, and thought to myself, oh, I'll just bring them out sometime when people are over and we need something to snack on. I have a bit of a thing for being prepared for these spontaneous drop-bys, don't you? Do you ever buy fig jam and overpriced crackers or some frozen mini quiches thinking, hey! how cute will this be if I just *happen* to have this on hand for when people stop by? And then nobody stops by and you end up eating them yourself when even your emergency frozen pizza is gone and you can't bear to cook? No? Just me? So fast forward to Sunday evening when a few friends had stopped by to drink some beers and combat the Sunday Night Blues. Adam asks about the dilly beans in the cupboard, all casual like: hey babe, what are these? Can I open them?

AND I PANIC. But! But! If you open them, then we'll eat them! And then they won't be around when people stop by! And then what will we do for snacks???

Luckily, this was all in my head. On the outside, I'm cool as a cucumber and I'm all suuuure babe, open up the dilly beans! Yeah! And we proceeded to eat the whole jar and they were delicious. I saved the jar, and last night I put some more blanched green beans in the pickling liquid, added a bit more vinegar and some of the blanching water, and stuck it back in the fridge. I tasted one tonight - they're just as good, crunchier even. I think I've proved that you can have your pickle, and eat it too.

Which brings me to the entire point of this post (my, I CAN ramble, can't I?). I bought some hatch green chilies from New Mexico today. I do not know what to do with them. I roasted them under my broiler, a-like so:

They're currently in the freezer on a cookie sheet, and in a minute I'm going to put them in a bag so they're ready to go later in the year*. We did eat one tonight, and I sooort of get what all the fuss is about: they're smoky from the roasting and flavorful with a little bit of kick but not too much. So now I'll just have to decide what to do with them the next time people stop by. I'm partial to these chiles rellenos from Use Real Butter, or this green chile cornbread from Simply Recipes. And there are a lot of green chile stew recipes out there, too... So school me, people. What's the best way to use these puppies?

*Speaking of putting up summer's bounty for use later in the year, have you joined the Canvolution yet? Adam and I are signed up and psyched to be a part of the Somerville event happening on the 30th.

What do YOU do with marjoram?

Last week I bought some marjoram, and I have no idea why. Does this ever happen to you? I make a mental list of what recipes I want to try that week and then I take my mental list to the store and by the time I've gotten home I forget at least one of the things I was going to make. Something with chicken? I still don't know. When I did a little food blog search for marjoram I came across tidbit on SeriousEast called Marjoram: What is the Deal? My question is: what is the deal with this totally emo photo of marjoram? How did that happen?

Anyway, it was some interesting reading, but not many recipes mentioned. I wandered over to epicurious.com instead and came across this little gem, Castellane Pasta with Sausage, Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, and Marjoram. Oh man. There's certainly no way to make it look pretty (so I sort of quit trying... sorry, I was hungry!) but it tastes great. Kind of like the old standby of sausage and peppers, but punched up with tomatoes and marjoram and mellowed out with tangy goat cheese. If you grow marjoram or have some around, give it a try. Oh, and if you have a kick ass marjoram recipe, could you leave it in the comments, please? I still have tons of the stuff and I'd hate to let it go to waste now that I know I like it!

I made some substitutions, of course, based on what I had around the kitchen: sweet sausage vs. hot, whole wheat pasta vs. regular, adding a jalapeno because I only had sweet sausage. The link above will take you to the original, this is the way I made it.

Pasta with Sausage, Peppers & Marjoram
adapted from Bon Appetit

serves two

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb sweet italian sausages, casings removed (three links)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, semi-seeded and minced (I like a little heat, remove all seeds and ribs if you don't)
1/2 medium onion or 1 large shallot, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh marjoram
1 pint cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper
1 handful whole wheat spaghetti
3 ounces goat cheese

Start a large pot of salted water to boil.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil, then saute the sausage (casings removed, remember), breaking it up into bits, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add both peppers and the onion, then saute 10-12 minutes or until the peppers are soft and the onions are golden. Stir in the marjoram and tomatoes, and saute 5-10 minutes until the tomatoes get squishy, then crush them with your spoon.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in the boiling water until al dente. Drain, reserving a little cooking water.

If the skillet is large enough, add the spaghetti to the skillet. If not, return the cooked spaghetti and sausage/pepper mixture to the pot. Add the crumbled goat cheese and stir to blend, thinning with cooking water if necessary. Transfer pasta to plates and enjoy.