Chiles Rellenos

I may have said this before, but I do believe deep down inside I am a little tiny bit Mexican.  Nevermind that there's not a drop of anything but European blood in me.  That doesn't matter.  I love Mexican food, and I could eat it every single day and not get tired of it.  Lucky for me, I work with several people who were either born in Mexico, or whose parents were born in Mexico.  I'm always asking them for recipes and tips and tricks to make my dishes better.  This is one of those recipes, so you know that it's authentic and delicious.  It takes a little while to make so I don't think this will be a regular week night meal for us, but it's perfect for a lazy weekend dinner.  Besides, you can indulge yourself in margaritas on the weekends.  And believe me, you're going to want a margarita or three.  It's the weekend, no one's judging!

Chiles Rellenos with Habenera Sauce

What you need:

Chiles Rellenos

4 Anaheim peppers

Mozzarella cheese

2 eggs

Flour

Oil for frying

Thin cut sirloin steak

Onion (sliced)

Cumin

Steak seasoning

Salt and Pepper

Habanera Sauce

1 tomato

1 onion

3-4 cloves garlic

2 jalapeno peppers

2 habanero peppers

15 oz can tomato sauce

Salt (to taste)

What you do:

Place the tomato, onion (peeled and cut into quarters), peeled garlic cloves, habanero peppers, jalapeno peppers, and anaheims on a cookie sheet.  Broil them until they skin is nice and brown and kind of peeling away from the flesh.  I turn the peppers over once to make sure they get browned on both sides.

As soon as you take them out of the oven put the anaheim peppers into a large ziploc bag, close it and cover them with a warm towel.  You will let them sit for at least 10 minutes.  

In the meantime take your onion, tomato, garlic, jalapenos and habaneros and put them all in a blender along with the tomato sauce.  Blend until mostly smooth.  When you take the lid off the blender do not, I repeat DO NOT, stick your nose in their to smell it.  You will regret it immediately.  I am speaking from personal experience.  

This is what the sauce should look like.  It's pretty spicy, so if you like spicy food 2 habanero peppers is perfect.  If you don't like spicy food so much I would suggest 1 habanero and maybe adding more tomato sauce to mellow out the spiciness.  Put the sauce into a small pan and keep it on the stove over low heat (just enough to keep it warm).  

Now, take those anaheims out of the ziploc bag and peel the skin off.  It should come over really easy now that we've let them steam in the bag.  

After you've peeled them all, make a small slit down the middle and stuff them with the mozzarella.  Put enough cheese in there to fill up the body of the pepper, but not so much that you can't kind of pull one side of the pepper over the other so the cheese is mostly covered by the pepper.

Now, whisk the two eggs with a 1 or 2 tablespoons of water and season some flour with a little bit of salt and pepper.  Dip the stuffed peppers into the egg wash, then roll them in the flour.  Accept that fact that your hands will get incredibly messy now.    

While your oil is heating up to fry the chiles, cube up the steak and season with cumin, steak seasoning, salt and pepper.  Cook in a large frying pan with the sliced onion.  Now all you need to do is fry the peppers.  It will take several minutes on each side to make the chiles all nice and crispy and golden brown.

Serve with Mexican rice and refried beans.  I swear, one day soon I will show you the recipe for homemade refried beans. Seriously, the easiest thing you will ever make.  You'll never want to buy the canned stuff again.