I learned how to make chile relleno

[Nast]

...And it takes damn near forever!
So on Friday one of my mom's coworkers taught us how to make chile relleno, and the result was a delicious fried packet of cholesterol. The thing that surprised me is that it took about two hours to make 14 stuffed chiles, but it was totally worth it. Here's the recipe:

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6 poblano peppers (look for ones that are straight as possible, without indentations)
8 small yellow peppers
1 pack of ground beef
onion
tomato
garlic
canola/grapeseed oil
ranchero cheese
5 egg whites
2 egg yolks
A little bit of flour
sour cream
pomegranate seeds

1. Wash the chilies.
In a large cast iron pan on medium heat, place the chilies and burn their skins until they are evenly charred, turning if necessary. Place them in a plastic bag for a bit: this will steam them, and make their skins loose and easier to peel.

2. Chop some tomato, onion, and garlic. Heat a pan greased with some oil, and then briefly sautee the tomatoes, onions, and garlic. Now add the ground beef. Once the beef is cooked, set aside. This is your stuffing for the chilies.

3. Take the chilies out of the plastic bag, and peel their skins of. Be very careful not to tear them. Once they're all skinned, slit one of their sides and remove the seeds and membranes. Again, be careful not to tear them.

4. Now wash your hands really well, because capsaicin can be a bitch.

5. Stuff some of the chilies with the meat mixture, and the rest with the ranchero cheese. To seal the chilies, use toothpicks to close up the slit.

6. Now for the batter: separate five eggs so that you have five whites, and reserve 2 of the yolks. Place the whites in a mixing bowl, and them whip them up into a foam using an electric blender. Near the end, add the yolks. You can tell when the egg foam is done by turning the bowl upside down and nothing falls out!

7. Lightly dust the stuffed chilies with a pinch of flour on all sides.

8. Fill a medium sized pan with oil up to about 1 1/2" to 2", and heat the oil on high until it's sufficiently hot for frying. Now turn the heat down.

9. Dip a chile in the egg foam, spooning the mixture on all sides with a spoon, and then fry in the pan. Flick the oil with a spatula onto the tops of the chilie, so the egg foam batter puffs up. Once one side is golden, flip it on the other side.
Repeat until all chilies are fried.

Serve the chilies with warmed sour cream and pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top.

[Contessa_Ugolino]

That egg foam technique sounds really interesting -- I've never seen it before. Thanks! This sounds delicious.

[Nast]

I had never seen it before, either! The cool thing about Mexican regional cuisine is the variability of foods, on a regional scale and depending on the preference of the family that makes it.

I like the egg foam method because it makes the dish a little lighter than if it used a flour batter, cause the chile relleno is pretty heavy for my taste already.

[Jenne]

we do egg foam when we deep fry the stuffed squash blossoms

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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