Chiles Rellenos 101

We spent an entire day at cooking school in Mexico City on chiles rellenos, which literally means “stuffed chiles.” Chiles can be stuffed with anything you can imagine – bits of cheese, fish, raisins, chicken, shrimp, just veggies, whatever. The idea is to use the chile as a wrapper, much like you would a tortilla, but first, there’s a bit of prep involved.

Chiles have thick skins that need to be softened first, and there are a couple of ways of doing this:

1. By roasting the chiles over an open fire or under the broiler until the skin blackens. Then, you simply put the chiles in a plastic bag and let the steam loosen the outer skin.

2. Boil the chiles in milk for 15 minutes.

Now that the chile is soft, it needs to be cleaned. Make a “T” incision in the chile, with the top part of the “T” at the chiles’ shoulders, or broadest part. Now, with a small spoon, scrape out the seeds and the placenta, the fleshy white part attached to the top. Also, be sure to get all of the white membrane out of the insides. The membrane holds lots of heat.

Once the chile is cleaned, you’re ready to stuff and bake – or fry, as the case may be.

For a great, easy chile relleno recipe, see my recent post, Crunchy, Cheese Chiles Rellenos with Roasted Tomato Salsa.

Oh, I almost forgot — enjoy the show.