Chile Rellenos with Spicy Spanish Rice and Black Bean Frijoles

Chile Rellenos with Spicy Spanish Rice and Black Bean Frijoles

I have been on a quest to try preparing dishes all new to me, something I have never prepped before.  I started with Swordfish Pasta, which was a great success.  If you recall, five years ago, my friend, Maria, and I made tamales. Maria taught me very well, but I scraped more masa off my walls than went into my tamales.  There are times when my dishes are successful and elegant and times when they are successful but not so pretty.  This is one of Those dishes. 

My first favorite Mexican food item was chile rellenos, a cheese stuffed fire roasted chile, seeded and gently fried or oven baked in an egg white batter.  Oh man, do I have stories about this dish!  It is why I call this a "learning" blog.  I think cooking, whether you are a Michelin starred chef, a line cook or a home cook, gastronomy changes all the time; it is a moving, living thing; the techniques and science behind it are always changing and refining. 

You cannot really have an item like chile rellenos without complementary side dishes.  I made a spicy Spanish rice and, black bean frijoles with my oven roasted salsa. Let's get started, shall we?

Preheat the oven to 400-degrees.

Roasted Salsa

1 white onion, quartered

3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled

1 large or 2 small Fresno Chiles, whole

2 serrano chiles

salt and pepper

fresh thyme and oregano

2 limes

Place foil down over a baking sheet or pan. Place the veg and aromatics on the foil. Drizzle vegetable or grape seed oil over each item. Sprinkle or grind salt and pepper atop the veg generously and toss them in the oil thoroughly. Oven roast for 18 minutes, turning at ten minutes. Remove and let cool. 

You will want to follow the same procedure, even adding the pasilla/poblano chiles to this baking pan for the rellenos.  You want them to blister on all sides. 

If you want to grill the items, follow the same procedures, but using tongs, place each item (except the garlic, place them on a piece of foil) on the grill and allow the chiles to blister on all sides.  Turn the onion at nine minutes.  They should have beautiful grill marks. 

If you have a gas stove top, you can follow the same procedures, but without the oil. 

Remove the ingredients. Seed and stem the serranos and the Fresno chile. Place them into a food processor and roughly process.  You are making a salsa. Add a good teaspoon of lime juice, just eyeball it, to the mix and process.  No salt and pepper needed, or shouldn't be, but if you feel it needs it, go for it, to taste. Process till chunky. 

Black Bean Frijoles

Drain and rinse one 14.5-ounce can of black beans.  Place the beans in a sauce pan with one tablespoon vegetable oil over medium-high heat.  Add one heaping tablespoon of the roasted, processed salsa and stir that in with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Stir thoroughly and reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for twenty minutes.  Afterwards, smash some of the black beans and add a teaspoon more of the roasted salsa. Add a little fresh lime juice. Remove from the heat, cover and set aside. 

Spicy Spanish Rice

2 cup rice, thoroughly rinsed

3 cups water

3 tablespoons roasted veg salsa

1 teaspoon salt

1 can (8 ounces) El Pato sauce

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Place the rice and oil into a high-sided sauce pan over medium-high heat. Stir the rice for a few minutes while it toasts.  Add the water and elevate the heat to high. Add the salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for one hour, checking and stirring at the thirty minute interval. After the hour, remove the lid and turn off the heat. Let stand for ten minutes to release the steam.  Add the can of El Pato sauce and the salsa and stir to incorporate thoroughly. 

Chile Rellenos

Earlier, I had roasted three pasilla/poblano chiles.  Anaheim green chiles are great to use, as well.  After the chiles have steamed and cooled, remove the skin from the chiles very carefully. Use a paring knife to gently cut a T near the stem top of the chile and open.  Try not to tear the back side. Cut or scoop out the seed base at the stem and gently scoop out as many of the remaining seeds as possible.  Add either a stick of Oaxaca cheese or a good amount of grated Oaxaca (or mozzarella) and fold the T closed.  

In a large bowl, add four - six egg whites and whip the eggs until they begin to solidify due to the air being beaten into the egg whites. Now, here is where my learning process really started.  In my first attempt, I cracked five eggs into a bowl and used a hand mixer to beat the egg whites.  But after twenty minutes, the mixture was looser than the the unbeaten egg whites!  

Don't do this at home, kids!!!!!

My great friend, Jonathan, a Chef from Panama, suggested I use room temperature eggs and beat them with a whisk, not a power utensil.  Oh, but the first time, I put the original eggs into my Ninja, to no avail after the hand mixer was a bust.  So frustrating!  Allowing the eggs to come to room temperature for about 35 minutes was the key and using a whisk for about ten to fifteen minutes made a perfect, thick batter.  Great arm workout!  

I carefully dipped the three stuffed chiles into the batter and placed them into a large skillet over medium-high heat with three tablespoons vegetable oil drizzled in.  Tip, do not place the egg battered chiles into the skillet until the oil ripples.  Then I reduced the heat to medium.  Pour any extra batter atop the T of the egg to hold the chile together. That is another tip I figured out, too. 

My chile rellenos did not turn out pretty, I know.  I cannot claim fame there.  Next time, since I now know the nuances of chile rellenos and egg whites batter.  However, allow the egg whites to turn golden and remove.  A little darker is not a problem.  You may see the cheese start to bubble and ooze out.  You Know they are done, particularly then.  

Serve with the Spanish Rice and the Black Bean Frijoles and you have a fantastic, fairly authentic Mexican Meal.  The flavors are savory, warm and aromatic.  Just a wonderful, complete, healthy meal. Despite having no meat, there is protein in the beans, carbs in the rice and vitamins in the chiles.  Delicious and healthy!

Add fresh oregano as garnish and drizzle the remainder of the roasted salsa atop a chile relleno and serve.  I had wanted to add cheese to the top of the beans and relleno but i forgot.  Forgive me. 

My recipe for the chile rellenos serves two or three, but you can change that to as many as you need. Adjust the eggs, two per chile relleno.  I used six eggs for three chiles. 

As always, Thank You for your time and consideration, friends!  Thanks for your visit!

Please remember that Food is Love.  With that, Go Cook For Someone You Love!!!

Addendum:  I am so embarrassed that I published the original document as it was last night.  I had worked on it for several hours yesterday and was so tired when finished, though I thought I had properly edited spelling and grammar, I obviously did not.  Please forgive the original unprofessional document.  While I may have missed something during this thorough editing, and while the way I write is the way I speak, some things may not sound correct to you, I believe I have fixed most issues.  Thank You for your patience with me.  I really wanted to finish and publish last night.  Lesson Learned:  Be professional and thorough. 

~Martin

In-House Cook