Category Archives: Farmers Market
Hot Stuff
I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but I used to grow a six-pack of tomatillos in the garden every summer and transform it in to a wonderful roasted tomatillo sauce. I made more each summer than I used up over the winter, and the stash in the freezer grew and grew. Howard finally said enough is enough, and it’s been several years since there were tomatillo plants in the garden.
There is still tomatillo sauce in the freezer, though the supply is dwindling.
At this week’s farmers market, I saw a pile of beautiful poblano peppers. I love chile rellenos, so I picked up a few. The only thing is that I’m not big on frying. Fortunately, cheese-stuffed peppers bake up very nicely.
I like the filling I use when I make jalapeno poppers, so I went the same route, combining grated cheese with cream cheese to bind it together. Lots of creamy gooiness!
How does the tomatillo sauce figure into this? The peppers need something on top, of course. I tried something new, combining the tomatillo sauce with ground sesame seeds for Pepian Sauce.
Poblanos were typically on the mild side, but the ones I used this time turned out to be somewhat spicy. The cheese helped. Good thing I didn’t go for the PepperJack cheese that I originally considered. Also, I think I drowned the peppers in too much sauce, though the tastes went together well.
Chiles Rellenos with Pepian Sauce
Serves 2
4 poblano peppers
4 oz cream cheese (light is fine), at room temperature)
4 oz Monterey jack, grated
5 scallions, sliced
Pepian Sauce (see below)
Char the skin of the peppers under the broiler or over a gas flame. Put the charred peppers in a covered bowl to steam. Peel the skin off the peppers. Core the peppers and gently remove seeds and ribs from the inside.
To make the filling, combine cream cheese, grated cheese, and scallions. Divide mixture evenly. Form into an oval patty, and stuff each pepper.
Cover the bottom of a baking dish that just fits the peppers with sauce. Arrange stuffed peppers. Cover the peppers with sauce.
Bake at 350F for 20 minutes.
Pepian Sauce
1½ cups tomatillo sauce (recipe here) or purchased salsa verde
½ cup stock (corn or chicken) or water
½ cup sesame seeds
8-10 cilantro sprigs
½ tsp ground anise seed
In a dry skillet, toast the sesame seeds until golden. Be careful not to burn them.
In a medium pot, add the stock, toasted sesame seeds, cilantro and anise to the tomatillo sauce. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Puree the sauce in the blender until smooth. It will take at least a minute.
French Fridays with Dorie: Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb
This week, for French Fridays with Dorie, there’s another main dish on deck. This time, it’s a one-pot dinner, my favorite kind of thing: braised cardamom-curry lamb.
This hearty stew was perfect for the cold snap that just arrived. The curry flavors in this stew aren’t ones I usually cook with, but I liked the variety it added to the week’s meals.
After the deception I tried to pull with last week’s soup, I didn’t think I would be able to sneak most of the fruity ingredients into the lamb stew. Miraculously, Howard does eat figs, dried or fresh, but I knew the raisins and apples were out. I had to come up with a different plan.
When making stews, I will typically halve the meat and double the vegetables that the recipe calls for. For this recipe, I started with about 2 pounds of lamb shoulder chops I had from our meat CSA. There were more bones than I expected, so I ended up with only about one pound of lamb cubes. As a substitute for the apples, I used a butternut squash cut into one-inch cubes and left out the potatoes.
With its braising time of over an hour plus prep time, this recipe is definitely not after-work-weeknight cooking. I ended up making it last night, but we didn’t eat it yet.. The steps were straightforward, though there was a lot of chopping. First, onions and garlic were slowly cooked with curry and cardamom until they softened. Then, the cubes of lamb were stirred in until lightly browned. Water, honey, figs, mint, and squash were added and then braised in a tightly covered Dutch oven until tender, about an hour for me.
I keep calling this a stew, but braise is more accurate. The meat and vegetables were tender like a stew, but there wasn’t much liquid left in the pot. I tasted a few bites of lamb, squash, and liquid, before I put this away last night. I liked the warm, spicy flavors from the curry and sweet vegetables. We’ll have this for dinner tonight, and I plan serve it over egg noodles with a green salad on the side.
If you’d like to see how other versions of braised lamb came out, check out the links of other creative bloggers’ posts at French Fridays with Dorie. The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
I want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my FFwD friends and their loved ones. One of the many things I’m thankful for this year is the opportunity to meet (virtually, anyway) so many other cooks that share my passion for food and cooking. I’m enriched by the experience.
A Plateful of Happiness 