Namesake: Chicken Chile Verde
January 25, 2012
J's signature chicken chile verde.
People constantly buttonhole me: “Robyn, the name of your blog is Chile Verde Chronicles, but you don’t have a single chile verde recipe: What’s up with that?”
OK. I exaggerate. It is a fair question, but no one has asked. Well, hold onto your hats, friends …
First, a little bookkeeping: I contemplated filing this under “Tradition” as this dish pops up frequently enough in our rotation. It could also fit naturally under the header “Sunday Dinner” as that’s the standard CV feast day. At the same time, it could just as easily fit under “Refrigerator Staple” because we always seem to have a batch of leftovers. But to me this dish deserves its own header, and perhaps some day a series of posts.
Safe to say that J’s chicken chile verde has evolved dramatically over the years. In one of the first versions, back in our early dating days, he used canned jalapeños instead of milder green chiles. The result was fuego — liquid fire — which he declared “practically inedible.” Coming from him, that’s saying something.
Today the basic ingredients remain the same (chicken thighs, lots of veggies and chicken broth), but there’s always a tweak here and there. One batch he’ll use roux as a thickener, the next it’s barley. (Can you imagine?) At times, he’s rubbed and grilled the chicken first, finishing it in the stew, and other times he’s poached the chicken to make the broth base. Every time he makes it, it’s slightly different, and a little better.
So, without further ado, I give you his latest version which involved rub-seasoning and grilling the chicken:
J’s Chicken Chile Verde
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
2 strips bacon cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 large jalapeño (or more to taste), chopped
3 7-ounce cans whole green chiles, 1 can chopped, 2 cans diced (will be divided)
1 green bell pepper, diced (will be divided)
3 small onions, diced (will be divided)
6 cloves garlic, chopped
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 chicken bullion cube
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (less or more to taste)
8 to 10 black peppercorns
1/3 cup barley, rinsed
Pinch of chile flakes
Salt and fresh-ground pepper
Fresh lemon or lime.
For the rub: In a plastic storage bag, combine the paprika, granulated garlic, chipotle powder, salt and pepper, and shake to mix. Add the chicken, give it a little rubdown, and refrigerate for at least one hour while you start the stew.
In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, crisp the bacon, rendering the fat. Add the carrots, celery, 2/3 of the diced onion, 1/2 of the diced bell pepper and cook in until soft, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, barley, cumin seeds and peppercorns and stir to mix with the vegetables. Add 1 can of chopped green chiles and half the jalapeño. Stir. Add the broth and the bullion and simmer, covered, for 1 hour to 90 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After simmering, blend the mixture until smooth, not grainy, using an immersion blender (this could take a few minutes — you don’t want whole peppercorns). Add the remaining onion, bell pepper, jalapeño and diced canned chiles and continue to simmer while you grill the chicken, making sure to mark it well. When done grilling, let the chicken rest for a few minutes, then dice.
Add the chicken to the chile verde and stir. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Season to taste with chile flakes, salt and pepper. If you feel so inclined, add a squeeze of lemon or lime, to taste, for a bit of acid.
That’s it. The barley adds a rich nuttiness, the grilled chicken a smoky undertone and the peppercorns, well, a nice pepper flavor. Serve with warm tortillas, beans, shredded or melted cheddar, crumbled Mexican cheese, shredded lettuce, minced onion, habañero salsa, cilantro — whatever combination floats your boat. Hell, it’s good in a bowl eaten with a spoon. It’s better the next day, and the next.
Phone us on a Sunday night and chances are we’re drinking wine and cooking up a big batch of chile verde. Pretty nice tradition, I say.
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- J’s signature chicken chile verde.
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- All the veggies in the broth, simmering away.
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- Our beloved immersion blender.
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- Grilled chicken thighs.
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- J’s black bean, pinto bean and barley filling.
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- The master at work, stirring the finished verde.
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- A few suggested toppings, for your consideration.
Food Memory: Slow-roasted Tomatoes
October 8, 2011
Caramelized, roasted tomatoes topped with fresh rosemary and thyme.
In Salt Lake City, J and I lived in a sweet little Victorian cottage in the 9th and 9th area. The house itself was a charming brick structure with a large backyard, and a good-sized, sun-soaked garden perfect for growing tomatoes and herbs. I’ve never considered myself a gardener, but somehow growing delicious tomatoes in the hot, arid Utah summers took little effort or skill. As long as you got them in after Mother’s Day, kept them watered and guarded against late frost and pesky snails, they pretty much grew themselves.
Starting around mid-July, we’d start enjoying the ripening Early Girls, Beefsteaks and Roma tomatoes in salads, fresh tomato sandwiches and pasta sauces and by September, you couldn’t turn around without stepping on a tomato. Well, now, where did you come from, my pretties? So plump and delicious, the mouth waters. All the better to eat you with!
Sometime in the mid-90s, I came across a recipe for oven roasted tomatoes with fresh garden herbs. Perfect for the end of September when the cricket thrums slow to the tempo of a porch rocking chair, these tomatoes go in a low oven for at least three hours. As they slowly give up their juices, they fill the house with an aroma so herbaceous and now familiar to me, it is a powerful symbol for the arrival of fall, and the comfort of home.
I make these tomatoes at least once a year in the fall, even though it’s been more than 10 years since we’ve had the “problem” of an exploding tomato population. What a shock it was moving to Chicago, and having access only to bland, waxy, hard grocery store tomatoes. Even so, this simple technique vaults even the most anemic tomatoes over the brink of caramelized deliciousness. Incredible on sandwiches, wrapped in a warm corn tortilla or munched straight off the cookie sheet, these gems don’t last for more than a few hours in our house. But if they did, I imagine they’d also be delicious on pizza, in pasta or atop crostini. Ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to autumn.
Slow-roasted Tomatoes
10 to 12 Roma tomatoes
4 tablespoons kosher salt or sea salt
4 tablespoons sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 to 2/3 cup finely-chopped fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, basil)
Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with aluminum foil or a Silpat liner. Cut the ends off the washed tomatoes; cut into thick crosswise slices. 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide. (The thinner the slice, the more the tomatoes shrivel. I prefer thinner slices.) Arrange the tomatoes on the cookie sheets, and drizzle each slice with a bit of olive oil. Turn the slices over, and repeat on the other side.
Mix the salt, sugar and pepper in a small bowl. Sprinkle a large pinch of the mixture on each tomato slice. Sprinkle on herbs.
Roast for three hours or until the tomatoes start to dehydrate. (If your slices are thicker, they can stay in longer. Just don’t let them burn.) Or, roast for two hours , turn off the oven, and leave overnight.
Refrigerate in an airtight container — that is, if they last that long.
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- Caramelized, roasted tomatoes topped with fresh rosemary and thyme.
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- Store-bought tomatoes, unfortunately.
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- Thick-sliced Roma tomatoes, ready for roasting.
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- Drizzled with olive oil.
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- All dressed up and ready for the oven.
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- Tomatoes in the oven, smelling delicious.
Refrigerator staple: Greek salad
May 22, 2011
Greek salad, a Sunday tradition.
It’s part of the Sunday ritual, so deeply ingrained that the weekend hardly feels complete without it. Every weekend, we make our shopping list, and every weekend, the same few ingredients appear: cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, feta, black olives.
After the groceries are put away, and before any other dinner-fixing starts, the chopping commences. Uncomplicated, and delicious in its simplicity,
our Greek salad serves as a side dish on its own, but more commonly I use it to top my chopped lettuce during the week. Every night. Yes, I eat salad every night during the week. I think of it as a calorie bank: I save up calories during the week that I can in turn spend on weekend splurges.
The essential component to our Greek salad is English cucumber, peeled. I find the seeds and skins of traditional cucumbers to be bitter and generally horrible. In fact, for years I detested cucumbers until I realized their problem could be fixed by peeling and seeding them, and I always question restaurants that slice cucumbers on salads without taking these extra steps.
Grape tomatoes are the other important component of the recipe. During the summer, if large, flavorful tomatoes are available, I’ll use them, but grape tomatoes are usually delicious, if a little expensive, year round.
So, peel, quarter and chop the cucumber, add a little salt. Halve the grape tomatoes lengthwise and add to cucumber. Finely mince 1/2 red onion and give the salad a toss. Though I buy pitted kalamata olives, I chop them to detect any lingering pits. In they go. Cube or crumble the feta and pile it in. Season with salt and pepper keeping in mind that the olives and feta add some saltiness. A drizzle of olive oil is the final touch. If I have a lemon, maybe a squeeze of juice, but I don’t go out of my way to buy lemon. Stir it up, and it’s done.
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- Greek salad, a Sunday tradition.
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- English cucumbers are the way to go.
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- Grape tomatoes.
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- Red onion.
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- Feta cheese.
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- A drizzle of good olive oil.
Pan, Pan, PAN!
April 25, 2011
Simple, delicious.
In the weeks before our holiday, J and I largely avoided bread, pasta and other simple carbohydrates. Now, anyone who knows me is aware I have a weakness for noodles, making this current diet a hardship (and making me cranky) at times, but I stuck with it nonetheless. And, except for the travel day which presented bland in-flight versions of the starchiest kind — chicken and white rice for dinner, egg on an English muffin for breakfast and a dry ham and cheese sandwich for lunch — we have, for the most part, been able to avoid overloading on carbs. That is, until yesterday when I may have met my match: the warm-out-of-the-oven, crusty exterior/pillowy-soft interior baguettes served in some restaurants and cafes.
Our first encounter with these treats was at Hontanares. While we consumed none at the time, the bocadillo (sandwich) action behind the counter caught my eye: a woman toasting fresh baguettes on the grill, then assembling the most simple, but delicious-looking, subs with jamón, queso, sausages or vegetables.
My friend agrees: No pasta, no happy.
An hour or so later, during our meal at La Finca de Susana, the waitress came by with smaller, pointier versions of the baguettes. Without ceremony, she placed them next to our plates. To break into one is something for the senses: The crust is crisp, but not too much so; the interior is soft and steaming, and neither the word chewy nor spongy fully describes the consistency, though those qualities exist. It’s soft, light and dense all at once. No homemade bread has ever matched this.
Today, after several hours touring the Reina Sofia and haunted by the assemblage of the sandwiches, we headed back to Hontenares. I ordered a Baguette Alemán — a toasted baguette topped with nothing more than halved sausages (frankfurters, really) and melted cheese. It was a good 12 inches long, and I halved it so J could try. (I gave him an inch and he took four or five!) Moments later, like a wisp of silk scarf disappearing around a corner, it was gone. Panicked, I contemplated ordering another, but I came to my senses. There is always mañana.
Refrigerator Staple: Soffritto
April 1, 2011
Soffritto, draining.
Onions.
Olive oil.
Tomatoes.
Garlic.
Salt.
Whenever J and I make a meal, you can bet that, in most cases, at least four of the five ingredients above are featured in some way or another. But in one of our newest refrigerator staples, they are the stars.
Helloooo, soffritto, you sweet, jammy medley.
We had our first encounter with soffritto over the holidays last year, following the recipe from Thomas Keller’s “Ad Hoc at Home” cookbook in the ever-engaging “lifesavers” section. His is a simple recipe, really: Finely dice onions (3 cups) and combine in a large pan with olive oil (1 cup, though I sometimes us a bit more so there is more to save) and a bit of salt. Bring the oil just to a boil, then reduce the heat and place the pan on a heat diffuser. Simmer for 2 1/2 hours.
Cue the tomatoes. Keller gives instructions for halving one pound plum tomatoes lengthwise, and grating the flesh on a box grater until only the skin is left in your hand. I did this once. But in December in the Northwest, plum tomatoes are pretty anemic. And while the process of hand-grating tomatoes is not difficult, I feel it’s not entirely necessary when a box of good-quality Italian crushed tomatoes is a fine shortcut. Add the tomatoes (1 cup or so) to the onion/olive oil stew, give a stir and simmer for another 2 1/2 hours. Low, slow.
Remove the pan from the heat, add one or two (Two! No, three!) minced garlic cloves and let the mixture cool on the stove. Use a fine-mesh sieve to drain off the extra olive oil, reserving it for the next batch of soffritto (Keller’s advice), or for sauteeing vegetables (our advice). Either way, refrigerate the oil, refrigerate the soffritto. Enjoy.
How to enjoy? I eat my fair share of quesadillas, and this mellow-sweet, onion-y condiment is a luxurious topping. It’s also delicious on frittata, fish or pasta.
Or, by the spoonful.
(I would never do that.)
Chile Verde Chronicles 