Chile Verde Recipe @ MeatHenge

Speaking of chili, this photo-illustrated recipe showed up this a.m. :

Tomatillo Chile with Pork - A Version of Chile Verde @ MeatHenge

It sure looks good to me.

E.M.

Erik M.

Wow, thanks!

I grew up eating chile verdi in my friend's parent's Mexican restaurant in Fresno, CA, it's one of the dishes I am most sentimental about. We used to make these tight little burritos to eat on the fly as we wandered around the restaurant. Incredible.

This recipe looks great although I am wondering about the heat, I am not used to an overly spicy chile verdi.

Have you ever had the chile verde at El Miagro? There's something kind of puckering in it and I don't think it's solely the tomatilos, I think they might put nopalitos in there as well.

Anyhow, if you have any places in Chicago where you like their version of CV, I'd love to know.

Thakns!

bjt

I love Meathenge, tho' I find Herr Biggles constant shilling for The Fatted Calf(among others) offputting. I can't figure out if he's just overly-enthusiastic or actually on the payroll.

bjt wrote:I grew up eating chile verdi in my friend's parent's Mexican restaurant in Fresno, CA, it's one of the dishes I am most sentimental about.

Whoa. I was born in Fresno, CA, and our neighbours and closest friends were Mexican. As I have stated before, I was essentially raised on food like this, and I love it dearly.

bjt wrote:This recipe looks great although I am wondering about the heat, I am not used to an overly spicy chile verdi.

I plan to tryout the recipe this weekend and I will let you know how it goes.

bjt wrote:Have you ever had the chile verde at El Miagro?

I assume that you mean El Milagro, and if so, no, I have not had it. You have me curious, though.

bjt wrote:Anyhow, if you have any places in Chicago where you like their version of CV, I'd love to know.

Oh, I think that we are both looking.

E.M.

Erik M

Thanks for the heads up! I was so taken with Biggles gastroporn that I dashed off to the market and whipped up a pot in time for last nights dinner.

This recipe looks great although I am wondering about the heat, I am not used to an overly spicy chile verdi.

I followed the reciepe except for the addition of a couple of small chille moritas which gave it a nice low and smoky heat level. Also very good with eggs the next morning!

JSM

Erik M.

"Whoa. I was born in Fresno, CA, and our neighbours and closest friends were Mexican. As I have stated before, I was essentially raised on food like this, and I love it dearly."

How funny, a fellow Fresnan right here in Chicago. Apparently you fled to the hills of Ojai, when I was in the 4th grade, we fled to the hills of the Sierra Nevadas. Anyhow, wow. Ask your folks if they ever ate at Kino's Mexican Restaurant. (There was a very large one in Merced as well.) While getting all Cali sentimental, did you ever eat at the Chicken Pot Pie shops? We also ate these yummy bierochs my Dad used to get from an old Russian bakery. Isn't it amazing how food and place are so connected? And figs! The Cavazos/Castillo family (owners of the Mexican restaurant) had a big old fig tree in their yard and we used to eat them till our chins were sticky and our bellies full. I haven't thought about this in a super long time, so thanks.

I'd love to hear your feedback on the recipe and yes, I did a typo, meant El Milagro. My husband plays indoor soccer in the winter in Pilsen and isn't allowed home unless bearing a big container of their puerco en chile verde. It's not the same as Kino's (a little tangier) but I like it just fine. I haven't seen it at many other places so I'm a loyal old dog and keep going back to El Milagro. But I'll keep looking.

cheers!

bjt

bjt wrote:Ask your folks if they ever ate at Kino's Mexican Restaurant.

My mother said, "No."

bjt wrote:While getting all Cali sentimental, did you ever eat at the Chicken Pot Pie shops?

My mother said that Marie Callendar's was the only one that we patronized. I don't remember that, but I cringed when she told me. According to her, though, it was a completely different animal in the early 70's.

bjt wrote:Isn't it amazing how food and place are so connected? And figs! The Cavazos/Castillo family (owners of the Mexican restaurant) had a big old fig tree in their yard and we used to eat them till our chins were sticky and our bellies full.

I can still taste the Central Valley figs and dates of my youth. Our Mexican neighbours--who were really more of an adopted family--kept a small farmette outside of town, and where they had a large fig tree orchard, along with a menagerie of small farm animals like chickens, goats, etc. I made frequent trips there with my Mexican "papá" so we could harvest figs and tend to the animals.

bjt wrote:I'd love to hear your feedback on the recipe and yes, I did a typo, meant El Milagro.

I just went out and bought a number of my ingredients. No cooking tonight, though. I'm headed to del Toro.

E.M.

Well, I followed the MeatHenge recipe nearly to the letter and was quite pleased with the results.*

I served the chile verde to several friends last night, along with Nuevo Leon's housemade tortillas de harina and a simple salad.

We managed to eat the whole batch.**


E.M.

* In lieu of mincing and browning the garlic as specified in the recipe, I minced and browned 4 cloves and broiled/roasted 6 additional cloves. I then pureed the broiled/roasted cloves with the tomatillos.

** Well, nearly the whole batch. I cooked a small portion of chile verde in the fashion of JSM above, adding a dried/reconstituted chile morita. Truth be told, I preferred the small portion cooked in this manner. The chile morita lent a wonderfully faint trace of heat and smoke. Thanks for the idea, JSM!

This is just to thank you for a great suggestion, Erik M. ! I made the chile verde for my daughter and her roommate, who is from Sinaloa. The girls were really delighted with the comforting pork and tomatillos, as well as the level of heat (I just added 1 1/2 canned chipotles in adobo). The leftovers didn't last long, either. Looks like I've got a new regular for the menu chez moi. Thanks.

I was so tempted by the photos that I made this dish over the weekend. Using the provided recipe as a guide my dish almost grew out of my dutch oven due to the fact that the smallest hunk of pork I got my hands on was 5.25 pounds after the butcher did his duty. I appropriatly increased the amounts for each remaining ingriedient except for the chipotles which I just doubled. I let my batch simmer on the stove for 5 1/2 hours until the pork chunks could be eaten without teeth.

While the stew was simmering I noticed a couple of almost no-longer safe to eat tomatoes on the counter. (I know November isn't a good time to be buying tomatos, so shoot me ) I also had half a can of chipotles in adobo. I instantly thought HOT SAUCE!!! I seeded and broiled the tomatoes with one small onion and two cloves of garlic. I wizzed everything with a hand blender and a touch of Turkey stock to thin things out a bit. I had fun watching the expressions on family and friends when I offered them a tast.

The stew by itself was wonderful. The batch I made was pleasantly smoky with just a touch of heat. Smearing the hot sauce on tortillas for dipping added just the right zip. Thank you so much for posting this.

Flip

Hi,

On Good Friday I made a batch of chili verdi to make room in my freezer to put other stuff. I made it to recipe except for two things:

1. When I read the blogger was inspired a by friend making similar beginning with a smoked shoulder. I decided to add some pulled pork I made earlier to throw into the mix.
2. I used 5 Poblanos rather than 4 because I had it available.

I remember Erik M commenting when he made this, how some pork pieces were tender and some were less tender. From my experiences of smoking pork shoulder, learned from GAry, I knew a longer cook would soften those pork pieces.

I liked the finished dish quite a bit. I gave some to a Mexican acquaintance who commented while it was good tasting, he felt it was too sweet to his tastes. I gave him the run down of ingredients, including the extra chipotle, he suggested I consider the following adjustments:
- more tomatillos
- only 2 Poblanos, which he felt was the major contributor of the sweetness.

While I liked it as-is, I thought some here may find his comments of interest.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I gave some to a Mexican acquaintance who commented while it was good tasting

While I am not Mexican, I was fortunate enough to be gifted some of this Chile Verde by Cathy2. I ended up braising a pan fried pork chop in it and it made for a delicious meal. I added some fresh chiles and cayenne to up the heat level a bit. I thought the chile verde was very good and worked nicely with the pork chip.

I gave some to a Mexican acquaintance who commented while it was good tasting, he felt it was too sweet to his tastes. I gave him the run down of ingredients, including the extra chipotle, he suggested I consider the following adjustments:
- more tomatillos
- only 2 Poblanos, which he felt was the major contributor of the sweetness.

Since it was cool the last few days, I made another round of Chili Verde with 2 Poblanos, 2 Jalapenos and 3.5 pounds of tomatillos. It was more sour than sweet. I gave a sample to my Mexican acquaintance, who must have been bracing himself to be polite, his response, "Oh my God, this IS good!"

(I liked it both ways)

Regards,

Since I just purchased a pig from a 4-H-er at the Meramac County Fair in Sullivan, MO, I have some wonderful pork shoulders on the way. My favorite recipe for Chile Verde is the one from Meathenge that is referenced in this thread. However, the link does not work. Fortunately, the recipe is still posted on the site. Here is the new, working link.

Josephine wrote:Since I just purchased a pig from a 4-H-er at the Meramac County Fair in Sullivan, MO, I have some wonderful pork shoulders on the way. My favorite recipe for Chile Verde is the one from Meathenge that is referenced in this thread. However, the link does not work. Fortunately, the recipe is still posted on the site. Here is the new, working link.

Yet another reason to make a copy for yourself. I really do like this recipe a lot.

Regards,