Authentic New Mexico Green Chile Gravy

Forgive the long, wordy post (I've posted the recipe before, but I can't help myself).

Today's post for Vegan Month of Gravy travels to one of my VERY favorite parts of the country, the sunny, dusty Southwest, to bring you one of New Mexico's signature dishes, Green Chile Sauce; more fondly called Green Chile Gravy, especially by the state's "old-time" residents. And it is essentially a "gravy" with green chiles added.

If you've been fortunate enough to visit, or live, anywhere near the spectacular "Land of Enchantment", you'll have discovered that this delicious gravy-sauce and it's counterpart, Red Chile Sauce, are EVERYWHERE, even McDonald's sells green chile burgers!

This is not some Tex-Mex vinigar-y, tomatillo-jalapeno-cilantro "green" spicy sauce, but a totally different creation alltogether. New Mexico green chile gravy contains none of the above ingredients but is instead simple, earthy and made up primarily of smoky, roasted peppers.

To make it right, you'll need real, genuine New Mexico green chiles. If you can't locate them locally (and few of us can) New Mexico's famous chiles are available shipped fresh, for a price, or better yet, go visit during chile harvest. Totally worth the trip.

The fat, green chiles (sometimes called "Hatch chiles" after the town where large numbers are grown) have a distinct, fruity, rich flavor, with a mellow but building heat. Sometimes they're hotter than others. They've been compared to Anaheim chiles, but seriously - there's no comparison.

During chile season, the peppers are roasted outdoors over fire in these big, rotating, round wire drums. You can smell chile smoke as they char, and hear the seeds and skins popping and crackling from blocks away. Totally an experience!! When it's time to use them, the skins are peeled off and the soft chiles are chopped and cooked in whatever recipe.
The red chile is actually the same pepper, but picked later in the season so it is red (ripe), it's not roasted, but dried, ground into powder and blended with liquid to make the thick, dark, spicy, red chile sauce.

For you trivia nerds (OK, maybe that's just me) chile peppers are New Mexico's largest agricultural crop; used at practically every meal, celebrated in songs and at festivals, and the subject of the Official New Mexico State Question, "Red or green?"

The question refers to the color of chile you want on your food and you'll get asked at every Mexican (or New Mexican, sorry!!) restaurant. (And the correct answer? "Christmas". Meaning you'll have both red AND green.)

I think the reason many of us know very little about New Mexico's green chiles is because they don't transport so well. They're a fragile seasonal vegetable, (well, yes, technically a fruit) and the only way to really appreciate them is freshly fire-roasted, though the fire-roasted, frozen variety are actually surprisingly good that's your second choice. Tasteless, acidic, canned, slimy green chiles are absolutely not an option here. Stop reading now if you think you're going to try this recipe with canned green slug peppers.

Most larger grocery stores stock the frozen tubs of "Bueno Foods" brand frozen roasted chiles though, and they will work nicely for this sauce (they're also less labor intensive, as they've been chopped and peeled for you); but for me, there's just something magical about buying a package of smoky, still-warm, freshly-roasted chiles early in the morning at the Farmer's Market in Santa Fe...

Anyway - exciting news, (for me anyway), two years ago, our "local" (Seattle) Whole Foods brought in some Hatch chiles and an authentic roaster for the fall, and I was able to get fresh-roasted green chiles without traveling half-way across the country to get my "fix".

I tend to LOVE anything New Mexico, can you tell? This gravy-sauce (which isn't a bright cilantro green, but more tannish-roasty-green color) is absolutely heavenly, and perfect over enchiladas, tamales, chile rellanos, burritos, potatoes or grits especially.

New Mexico's Famous Green Chile Gravy

3 tablespoons oil or margarine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup onion , chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
2 cups roasted, peeled/seeded/chopped New Mexican green chile peppers
3 cups vegetarian chicken-flavor broth
1 teaspoon salt
(optional: a pinch of oregano and/or a pinch of cumin can be added if you prefer a bit more spice, personally I like mine plain.)

In heavy-bottomed sauce pan, saute onions in oil, stirring every now and then, over medium heat, until they begin to brown. Add garlic and tomatoes and cook another 2 minutes but do NOT let garlic brown.
Stir flour in with onion mixture. Stir a bit and let flour "cook" for a few minutes. Remove from heat and slowly whisk in broth.
Add green chilies, salt (if needed) and oregano and cumin (if using) and mix well.
Bring to a boil, lower heat but keep at a simmer, stirring with wire whisk frequently, 20 to 30 minutes, to allow mixture to reduce.
The sauce should be like a medium-to-thin gravy and bind chilies and onions together.
Store in refrigerator up to a week if you can resist drinking it straight from the pan.

Red Chile Tempeh

Again, a sucky picture, as there is no longer daylight to help enhance my poor photography...

Anyway, Friday Night is "Mexican Night" in the Tofu-Mom household. (I think I may have mentioned that before.) Usually it involves some sort of Taco-Burrito-crunchy-cheezy-wrapped-up beany thing of my children's choosing; and those options are always good. But tonight, by an unusual twist of fate, I was home alone (oh noes!) and decided to do Mexican Night MY way.


First off, I have been craving red chile sauce. Not some vinegary hot sauce or tomato-y salsa, but the genuine New Mexico stuff; smokey, earthy rich red sauce made from dried, ground Hatch Red Chiles and that's about all.

Nothing else like it - try it if you happen to have a wonderful friend in New Mexico who will keep you supplied! It's not painful-hot, like eating straight cayenne pepper would be; but still a little intense for my kids; That's OK, more for me, and a perfect choice for my solo supper.

So this is what I did: using my crock-pot/slow cooker, I simmered some chunks of tempeh in my beautiful red chile sauce until the tempeh completely soaked up the sauce and fell apart. It was DEE-lish! I made a side of "cheezy rice" (without the brocolli) to go with, and watched Food Network to my heart's content, happy as a little vegan clam.

Red Chile Tempeh

2 tablespoons coconut oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup ground red chiles
3 cups cold water
1 package tempeh, cubed

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add chile powder and cook for an additional minute.
3. Gradually add the water and stir, making sure that no lumps form.
4. Add seasonings to sauce and simmer at low heat for 10-15 minutes.
5. Add cubed tempeh and simmer over very low heat until tempeh has absorbed flavors and sauce has reduced and is very thick. (I cooked it on low in a crockpot for about four hours).
6. Serve over rice, or in tortillas. Which I didn't, as you can see by my picture.

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I'll leave you with these lovelies.

Chantrelles.

Fresh from the woods near here. What a TREAT! A friend (whom I trust to know his mushroom varities) dropped them off today. I'll have to think of something appropriate to make ...

Red and Green for Christmas

Happy New Year!

After spending a couple vacations last year, with friends and relatives in New Mexico, I've been wanting to write down a few of the ideas and recipes I've come away with. The food there is amazing; colorful, flavorful, creative and full of ingredients or combinations I'd never tried. I fell absolutely in love with (among other things) the green chiles that New Mexico is so famous for.

There are as many definitions for "chile"as there are people in New Mexico, but most simply it's either "red or green". Either its the famous green New Mexico-grown chile peppers (especially the Hatch chiles, grown in southern New Mexico) that are roasted over a fire until their skins blacken and char. The skins get peeled off and the soft chiles are chopped and cooked in whatever recipe.
Its counterpart, the red chile, which is the same pepper, but picked later in the season so it is red (ripe) and then dried, ground into powder and blended with liquid to make a red sauce. You also see the dried red pods made into beautiful chile ristras (strings or wreaths of chiles) for sale all over Santa Fe and Albuquerque's Old Town. (Well, everywhere actually, I just happened to see them a lot in the "tourist-y" places because that's where I went mostly, this trip).

Spanish settlers brought the chile pepper into what is now New Mexico in the 1600s, and it is now the state's largest agricultural crop; it's consumed at every meal, celebrated in songs and at festivals, and is the subject of the Official New Mexico State Question, "Red or green". The question refers to the color of chile you want on your food and you'll get asked at every Mexican (or New Mexican, sorry!!) restaurant.

I think the reason the rest of us know so little about New Mexico's green chiles is because they don't transport so well. They're a fresh and seasonal vegetable, (well, yes, technically a fruit) and the only way to really appreciate them is freshly fire- roasted, though the fire-roasted and frozen variety are pretty close if that's your second choice. Canned slimy green chiles are not even an option.

OK then. So this past Christmas break, I spent some time in New Mexico, and returned with my tummy full of green chile and my brain full of recipes, ideas and happy memories.

_______________

(I know, the picture doesn't look
all that great, but it IS yummy
stuff!)

OK, so, first of all, one of my new favorites, Green Chile Stew. This stuff is addictive, it doesn't have to be SUPER spicy but I tend to like it that way. With all those Vitimin-C-filled chile peppers, it's great for a cold and (I discovered), it's sorta like meatloaf or apple pie, there are hundreds of slightly different versions of the "official" recipe! Normally it has pork or something dead and disgusting in it, but here's the vegan version that I learned from one of my wonderful veggie freinds.

New Mexico Green Chile Stew

1 pkg. Boca crumbles or 1 pkg. Morningstar Farms Beef Meal Starter Strips or if you prefer something else, go for it...
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups roasted, peeled and chopped New Mexico green chiles
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 to 4 cups water
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, Mexican preferred

Place the Crumbles or Meal Starter strips in a skillet and brown a bit in the oil, remove and place it in a kettle or stock pot.
Put the onions in the skillet, adding more oil if necessary, and sauté until they are browned. Add the garlic and cook for an additional couple of minutes. Remove them from the skillet and add to the 'meat'.

Pour a little of the water into the skillet, bring to a boil, and deglaze. Pour the liquid over the 'meat'. Add all the remaining ingredients, and simmer for an hour or so, 'till the potato is soft.
________________

Another new favorite for me is Posole. (Also spelled 'Pozole'). Posole is a New Mexican soup traditionally served on Christmas Eve. It is made with a type of corn, hominy really, that's been treated with lime (I know, sounds weird). You buy it dry, soak it forever, and when the kernals start to burst, it's time to cook the rest of the soup. Posole is also 'traditionally' made with pigs feet. Obviously I left those out (UGH!). I love creating my own traditions with veganized versions of regional and cultural favorites and this is a great example, though in all honesty, I got the recipe - or general idea - from a friend who's lived in NM basically all his life.

My 6-year-old goes NUTS over this stuff, she'll eat three bowlfulls in a row, with really HOT green chile sauce (though I think it's 'traditionally' served with red, once again, there we go, breaking tradition).

I have to buy the dried posole corn or hominy (or cacahuazintle is technically what it says on the package) in New Mexico, or at a tiny little specialty market in Seattle, or bribe a friend to mail some to me, so we don't make this as often as my kids would like. Canned hominy is JUST not the same. I tried it, it was AWFUL!

POSOLE SOUP

2 c. posole or dried hominy (or cacahuazintle as my package says), picked over for dirt or stones
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 c. chopped onion
2 T. minced garlic
1 oz. New Mexico dried red chile pods, (4 or 5 pods, stems and seeds removed)
5 c. vegetarian UNchicken broth
pinch of cumin and Mexican oregano
1/2 c. coarsely chopped cilantro
2 t. salt, or to taste

Soak posole/hominy corn in a large amount of water overnight (it will swell quite a bit!!). The next morning, cook posole in water in crockpot on low for about another 12 hours until the kernels have softened and begin to burst. Drain the posole and rinse well.
Heat the oil in a 6-quart pot and sauté the onions until golden. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the posole, dried chiles, broth, cumin and oregano. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the salt, to taste, and continue cooking for 30 minutes. Stir in the cilantro. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Serve with warm red chile sauce on the side. Yum!
**In the picture I took above, I had added some red and green bell peppers for a little extra interest though they're not necessary.