Hatching a Plan

Fresh Hatch green chiles from New Mexico

I was pretty surprised to hear from my boss that Hy-Vee had a special display of Hatch green chiles, mostly because I had heard plenty about these peppers and how they are unavailable outside of New Mexico, and how New Mexicans pine for them, endlessly discuss them, like a Frenchman might lament the impossibility of a proper croissant au beurre here in 'Murika.  So I scooted over there and found a huge display set up advertising their short, 6-week availability and scooped up 5 pounds of them.  I knew I had to have them,  if only to encourage the surely bored produce buyers at Hy-Vee to step it up and take more chances like this.  And I could always freeze the roasted, seeded chiles to use in the unbearable dead of winter.

Tomatillos ready to be roasted into smokey goodness

There really was no contest in choosing what I was going to make: chile verde.  I knew something was missing in my life, and it was the tart, smokey, meaty liquid ecstasy that is chunks of pork simmered in a tomatillo and green chile sauce.  The chiles were roasted promptly upon my arrival back at home, along with some tomatillos and garlic, then blended together into a puree with a few fresh jalepenos.  Brown the pork in the pot, saute some onion, add it all together with some salt and pepper and a touch of smoked paprika and I could already tell I would be eating almost all 4 pounds of pork within the next day and a half.


7 roasted Hatch chiles, skinned and seeded
2 pounds of tomatillos, papery skin removed and then roasted
7 cloves of garlic, whole, roasted, then skinned
3 jalepenos, unroasted, minced
1-2 cups chicken stock

4 pounds of boneless pork butt or shoulder, or country-style ribs, cut into chunks
1 large onion, diced

salt, pepper, smoked paprika

Combine the first set of ingredients and blend until pureed.  Brown the chunks of pork in hot oil in a heavy pot, remove, then saute onion in the leftover fat until translucent.  Add everything back to the pot with a good dash of salt and pepper, and two pinches of smoked paprika, then simmer for 3 hours or more, uncovered to thicken and concentrate the chile.  It's done when the meat is starting to fall apart but not over-cooked and stringy.  Adjust the seasoning to your taste, but not before it is done cooking (otherwise the salt may concentrate to unbearable levels).

Green Chile by Jimmy Santiago Baca

I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.

But grandmother loves green chile.
When I visit her,
she holds the green chile pepper
in her wrinkled hands.
Ah, voluptuous, masculine,
an air of authority and youth simmers
from its swan-neck stem, tapering to a flowery collar,
fermenting resinous spice.
A well-dressed gentleman at the door
my grandmother takes sensuously in her hand,
rubbing its firm glossed sides,
caressing the oily rubbery serpent,
with mouth -watering fulfillment,
fondling its curves with gentle fingers.
Its bearing magnificent and taut
as flanks of a tiger in mid-leap,
she thrusts her blade into
and cuts it open, with lust
on her hot mouth, sweating over the stove,
bandanna round her forehead,
mysterious passion on her face
as she serves me green chile con carne
between soft warm leaves of corn tortillas,
with beans and rice–her sacrifice
to here little prince.
I slurp form my plate
with last bit of tortilla, my mouth burns
and I hiss and drink a tall glass of cold water.

All over New Mexico, sunburned men and women
drive rickety trucks stuffed with gunny sacks
of green chile, from Belen, Beguita, Wllard, Estancia,
San Antonio y Socorro, from fields
to roadside stands, you see them roasting green chile
in screen-sided homemade barrels, and for a dollar a bag,
we relive this old, beautiful ritual again and again.

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