stuffed poblanos - part 2

By englandt

Ingredients

• 6-8 large poblano chili peppers
• 1/2 red onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 links fresh chorizo *
• 2 ears juicy fresh corn
• 1.5 tbsp tomato paste
• 1.5 tsp chipotle chili powder
• 3/4 tsp cumin powder
• 2 tbsp fresh oregano (or 1 tbsp dry)
• 200 g Cotija (about 1 cup) **
• 75 g (a scant 1/2 cup) shredded Monterrey Jack or aged cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper
• * Chorizo sausage can be found in

Preparation

Step 1

* Chorizo sausage can be found in one of two ways: fresh or dried/smoked. Smoked chorizo is delectable on an antipasto platter with a side of firm sheep’s milk cheese and roasted vegetables with crusty peasant bread to carry it from hand to mouth, but fresh chorizo (uncooked and not cured) is what you want to use for this dish.

** Cotija is a Mexican cow’s milk cheese, usually brined in a saline mixture which serves as a preservative. I have an unfortunate habit of referring to ‘cotija’ as ‘cojita’, because somehow it TASTES more like a ‘cojita’ to me, if that makes sense. It also tastes fairly similar to a crumbly feta, so if you can’t find cotija (and we often can’t, as evidenced by this picture) a firm feta will be a good substitute.



Finely chop the 1/2 red onion and mince the garlic cloves. Heat the olive oil up in a large skillet over medium heat (or medium low, depending on how hot your fires be) and start to sweat them out until the onion is starting to turn translucent and the mixture is fragrant.



Remove the casings from your chorizo links and crumble the meat into your pan by pinching off small portions and adding them in quickly. Break the meat up as it cooks until you have fairly small chunks. If your heat is too high the meat will cook too fast for you to break it up with your wooden spoon, so be sure to keep it fairly moderate.

When the meat is browned and cooked most of the way through, add the tomato paste, cumin and chili powder. Season the meat with salt and pepper, but keep a fairly light hand as the cheese can be quite salty and the chilis add enough heat that you wouldn’t want to overdo the pepper. Cook the mixture down together for a minute or two, until everything is nicely rouged.



As the tomato and spice mixture settles onto it’s new meaty friend, carefully remove the kernels from your cobs of corn. Use a long, thin, sharp knife to pare down as close to the cob as possible and remove as much of the whole kernel as you can. Add the corn kernels to your meat mixture and let it cook until the corn is bright yellow, about 3-4 minutes.



As soon as the corn is bright and tender-crisp, take the pan off the heat and let it start to cool.

In the mean time, prep your peppers by washing them thoroughly and then carving them in a ‘T’ shape. Cut just under the top of the pepper and go about halfway around. Then make an incision from the center of that cut and go in a perpendicular direction most of the way down to the bottom of the pepper. Carve out the seeds – a quick stroke of the knife should do the trick- and remove them.

And yes, I AM aware of exactly how filthy this picture looks, but believe me when I say that I am just not the type of girl to molest my chili peppers. I save that for the root vegetables.



Is your meat mixture fairly cool? If it’s just warm to the touch then that’s okay, but if it still feels hot you may want to give it another minute or two. It just means that you’re too efficient with the autopsy of unsuspecting poblanos, so you’ll likely want to let it rest just a WEE bit more or the cheese will start to melt when you crumble it in.

While that cools, you might as well get the heat going somewhere else. Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Finely chop the fresh oregano (or use dried, it’s up to you) and add this to the tepid meat. Crumble in the cotija (or feta) as well and give it a good stir.



Stuff the peppers, being sure to cram the stuffing right into those narrow bottoms and all the way up into the tops. If your peppers become a bit distended, that’s just fine. They’re bloated with sausage, corn and cheese. I can assure you that they won’t hold it against you.

Arrange the stuffed peppers in a baking pan or casserole dish.



Bake the peppers for 20 minutes, or until they’re blistered and soft.

Sprinkle the Monterrey Jack (or cheddar) evenly on top of the split peppers and return them to the oven for another 3-5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.