Tag: stew

Hatch A Plan For Green Chiles

Forget Christmas; hatch chile season is really the most wonderful time of the year.

Throughout the month of August, the air across Texas and New Mexico will be thick with smoke, streaming out from roasters cranking at full bore all hours of the day. As chiles tumble over the flames, their skin blistering and crackling like fireworks, they quickly char to a matte black finish. Intoxicating aromas assault the senses, so intense that you can practically taste it from a mile away.

You’ll mark you calendar by it too, once you get a bite of those freshly roasted beauties; earthy, smoky, and with a subtle, smoldering spice.

What’s So Special About Hatch Chiles?

The relatively short growing window gives them an air of exclusivity, drawing in crowds clamoring to get their fill. What sets them apart from other peppers is their delicate balance of flavor and heat. Not so spicy that they’ll send you running for dairy-free milk, it’s more of a subtle, smoldering burn that gradually builds over time. According to the Scoville scale, they typically clock in between 1,500 and 2,500 units, which is roughly comparable to poblano or Anaheim peppers.

While you can eat them raw, it’s not recommended; roasting them completely removes the initially harsh, bitter notes by caramelizing the natural sugars, transforming the flesh into a silky, smoky treat.

How Can You Cook With Hatch Chiles?

Given the opportunity, load up your freezer with a few pounds of freshly roasted chiles to enjoy their unique flavor all year round. People go wild for the green fruits, indulging their cravings from breakfast to dessert. A glance through HEB turns up gems like:

More traditional recipes incorporate them into cornbread, salsa verde, chili, and most importantly of all, hatch chile stew.

What Is New Mexico-Style Hatch Green Chile Stew?

The first written recipe for green chile stew dates back to the 1940s, published by renowned New Mexican cook and author Fabiola Cabeza de Baca. A humble, homey affair, the recipe included pork, potatoes, and roasted green chile peppers, which has since become the blueprint to an indispensable staple of New Mexican cuisine.

Unsurprisingly, my version takes a few liberties for the sake of ease, nutrition, and plant-based adaptations, but overall stays true to the spirit of the dish. Tender chunks of meatless protein simmered slowly in a rich broth, infused with the smoky, earthy flavor of those alluring chiles take on greater depth alongside potatoes, onions, garlic, and seasonings like cumin and oregano. The result is a hearty, comforting dish that warms you from the inside out, and makes you feel like you’re right at home in the Southwest.

Whether enjoyed on a hot summer afternoon, crisp fall day, or as a cure for a chilly winter evening, hatch green chile stew is a dish that will leave you wanting more.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)4 Comments

Quick and Easy Soup for Slow and Difficult People

Soup fills many needs, effortlessly crossing international and linguistic boundaries: comfort, love, adventure, education, and healing. Soup Peddler in Austin, Texas knows this well, inspired by a single man’s desire to translate his love for community and travel, two seemingly disparate concepts, into one pursuit. Cooking is the ultimate answer to bridging this divide.

Who’s the Soup Peddler?

Over twenty years ago, Soup Peddler founder David Ansel really was hitting the streets with bicycle-based deliveries of his favorite soups and stews. The business has grown to include a half dozen brick-and-mortar locations that offer cool fruit smoothies to combat the summer heat, but the sentiment remains the same. Whether it’s through a straw or on a spoon, there’s love in this formula. A dish like this satisfies an appetite beyond hunger.

Luckily for us, and for anyone outside of city limits, it’s not a secret formula in the least. The Soup Peddler’s Slow and Difficult Soups was published in 2005, shedding a light on David’s winning recipes. Don’t let the sardonic title scare you off; it strikes me as quite the opposite in practice. Case in point, the ever-popular mulligatawny soup that remains a perennial favorite on the menu.

What’s mulligatawny soup?

Thick with tender vegetables and lentils, a warm but mildly spiced undercurrent of curry runs through the soulful, deceptively simple base. To fit the rough translation of “pepper water,” I like to spike mine with fresh jalapeños, not included in the original version. What’s more, I’ve made some light modifications to streamline the cooking process. I’m already difficult enough without my soup following suit, after all.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)6 Comments

A Wealth of Flavor

New Year’s traditions are fraught with superstition. Grappling with the end of an era and beginning anew can be daunting, so it’s no surprise there are countless beliefs associated with easing the transition. If only there was a way to ensure good fortune for the next twelve months, surely that would provide a bit of comfort. Everyone has their own unique approach especially when it comes to guaranteeing good luck, though at the end of the day, it often comes back to the dinner table.

Black-eyed peas are famously linked with good luck, particularly in the southern states, sometimes causing a run on the humble staple in times of scarcity (otherwise known as supply chain disruptions in our modern day.) Native to West Africa, the dish began life as an all-purpose celebratory food without specific meaning, eaten for any joyous occasion. The peas could be seen as a charm to ward off the Evil Eye, and because they were numerous, growing in size when they cooked, they could represent growing fortunes or families.

Enslaved West Africans brought these traditions with them to the south, melding cultures to find New Year’s Day the best time for such an auspicious food. Their popularity spread just like the prolific field pea itself, spilling over into all households; good food is a universal language, after all. Some add greens into the mix to symbolize paper money, and the addition of cornbread is like gilding the bowl with gold leaf, in addition to simply being delicious. This is often known as Hoppin’ John, though the origin of the name is highly debated.

Considering such a wealth of historic flavor, I didn’t want to mess this up. I’ve made black-eyed peas before, but I never fully understood the significance. For an impoverished people that could count beans as currency, the tenacity, strength, and optimism it would take to proceed into another 365 days in good spirits is unimaginable. I have a hard enough time feeling positive about the future on a good day, and I’m aware of just how incredibly fortunate I am already.

In keeping with the spirit of the dish, I’m hoping that it will help increase my wealth this year, because I’m entering it in the Big Mountain Foods Recipe Contest! You can find out more about this dynamic meatless brand on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Taking the place of a customary ham hock or turkey wing, Lion’s Mane Mushroom Crumble adds an extra layer of umami along with a considerable protein punch. Though unconventional, I think it’s natural for the dish to continue to evolve as further cultural fusion occurs. Even before crafty cooks had access to a global palate of flavors, no two bowls of black-eyed peas would ever taste the same. Everyone has their own take on the concept, and of course, everyone’s own rendition is indisputably the best.

I need all the luck I can get heading into 2022, so I doubled up on auspicious offerings by putting cornbread right into the bowl. Rather than a fluffy square of golden corn, baked separately, I made mine as buttery dumplings that simmer right in the broth. It’s quicker, easier, and adds a satisfying heft and delightful chew, almost like fluffy cornmeal gnocchi.

No matter how you celebrate the coming New Year, I hope it’s full of pennies, dollars, and gold, literally and figuratively.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)5 Comments

Creature Comforts

There’s no accounting for what provides comfort. Some things are nearly universal, such as spending time with the people you love, or burrowing deep under a heavy blanket when it’s cold out. Food has always factored in for me, of course, but some surprising things came to the fore at the height of the pandemic. Shut off from the world, distraction was the best way to cope, and that meant losing myself in the world of anime and donghua. There’s no such thing as a mild obsession, which describes my sudden and complete immersion in these words just as well.

In one of my favorites, Mo Dao Zu Shi (魔道祖师), there’s a passing mention of lotus root soup. Only once does it actually grace the screen, but that was enough to capture my imagination. To better inhabit this world, to more fully experience the drama, I needed to make this soup.

As a time-honored Chinese preparation, lotus root soup itself has been a source of comfort for centuries. Simple and spare, with a clean, clear broth that sings with ginger, dried jujubes infuse a touch of sweetness to balance out the flavors with grace. The lotus root becomes tender yet remains crisp even after cooking for an hour. The flavor of this tuber is quite mild, which makes the alluring texture its greatest asset to the stew. Traditionally pork is use to add richness and protein, but in my version, wheat gluten is a natural substitute.

On that note, being the complete geek that I am, I’d like to think that my recipe is something that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji would be able to share. Though Wei Wuxian always preferred meat and spicy foods, lotus root soup was a favorite of his, and Lan Wangji always forbade the killing of animals within his sect’s territory. Secretly, I wonder if he was a vegetarian at heart.

Even if you’re not familiar with the story, this is definitely an effortless source of edible comfort that everyone can enjoy.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)6 Comments

Don’t Mess with Texas Chili

After 31 years on this earth, I have come to find that all my life, my entire idea of what chili should be is entirely wrong. Not flawed, not slightly askew, like a garbled translation leaning too heavily on artificial intelligence, but terminally, entirely wrong.

True Texans would laugh my chili straight out of the saloon. Defined primarily by what it omits, Texas-style chili would NEVER employ beans of any sort, NO vegetables (what is this, a salad?!) which excludes tomatoes as well. Not even a dab of tomato paste would make the cut.

Rather, this is a celebration of meat. Seasoned with the entire contents of a reasonably stocked spice rack, chilies in many forms are what tint this stew a fiery red. The ferocious, flavorful burn is not for the meek.

I’m not about to mess with Texas, but in this modern era, “meat” is no longer synonymous with beef. That’s why I’m thrilled to dive right into this time-honored tradition with a plant-based version that’s every bit as hearty, bold, and amazingly hot.

No cowboy in their right mind would ever turn down such a feast. Keeping things simple allows for greater flexibility in garnishes, whether you want to dress it up or down, or eat it plain. Pick and mix to your own tastes, but some of my favorite toppings include:

When it comes to creating a sound foundation, there’s no end to your options there, too. No need to keep in in a bowl when you could ladle it over:

Hungry yet? I sure hope so, because chili is best made in big batches. This one makes enough for a small family, but is prime material for freezer fodder, since I’m only a single lady myself. Portion out single servings in secure zip top bags and store flat in the freezer until ready to eat. All you need to do is drop it into a saucepan, add a splash of water, and cook over medium-low heat for an instant homemade meal.

Even if you’re an ardent vegetable lover like me, make some room on your dinner table for an exceptionally, unapologetically meaty entree every now and then. This one will satisfy any savory cravings.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)7 Comments