Chiles rellenos

Ingredients

• Poblano peppers6
• Oaxaca cheese or mozzarella350 g
• Eggs4
• Plain flour80 g
• Tomatoes600 g
• Onion1
• Garlic2 clove
• Mexican oregano1 tsp
• Oil for frying400 ml
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Char the peppers over a flame or under a grill until blistered black all over, close them in a bag for ten minutes and peel the skin away.

   20 min

2. 2

   Make a lengthways slit, ease the seeds out leaving the stalk in place, stuff with cheese and pin the slit with a cocktail stick.

   12 min

3. 3

   For the sauce, blend the tomatoes with the onion and garlic, fry the purée in a spoon of oil for ten minutes with the oregano, and season.

   14 min

4. 4

   Whip the whites to firm peaks, add a pinch of salt and fold in the yolks one at a time, trying not to knock the air out.

   8 min

5. 5

   Dust a pepper in flour, dip it in the batter and lower it into oil at 180 °C. Fry two minutes a side, spooning oil over the top.

   15 min

6. 6

   Drain on a rack, remove the sticks and serve with the hot tomato sauce beneath the pepper rather than over it.

   3 min

About the dish

The skin has to come off a poblano: it is tough and does not chew. The pepper is charred over a flame until it blisters black, then closed in a bag for ten minutes — the steam lifts the skin by itself.

The batter is whipped from egg whites to firm peaks with the yolks folded in afterwards. It is a soufflé rather than a batter: the air is what gives the puffed jacket that separates chiles rellenos from a fried pepper.

The pepper is dusted in flour before the batter. Without it the coating slides off in the oil and the whole thing falls apart.

Worth knowing

• — Make the batter immediately before frying. Five minutes standing and it collapses and stops clinging to the pepper.
• — The sauce goes under the pepper rather than over it: on top it soaks the coating within a minute.
• — A large sweet pepper can stand in for poblano, but the flavour changes — a poblano has a slight bitterness that balances the cheese.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

36 g

Carbs

24 g

More from Mexico

• Guacamole — Avocado, lime, onion and chilli crushed with a fork. No blender and no sour cream: both turn it into a dip rather than guacamole.
• Tacos al pastor — Pork in a marinade of dried chillies and pineapple, seared to caramelised edges, in a corn tortilla.
• Pozole rojo — A soup of pork and hominy in a dried chilli broth, with a pile of fresh garnishes on the table.