Do you have a food you love from your hometown that you can’t get anymore? For New Mexicans, that food will always be Hatch green chile. It’s ubiquitous in New Mexico, and you won’t just find it in enchiladas and chile rellenos and the like, but in more unexpected places, like eggs and burgers and pizza. New Mexicans are addicted.
So what is a displaced New Mexican to do? Decent green chile simply isn’t available everywhere – the 4-ounce cans of chile that most stores do carry are, sadly, largely devoid of flavor. No, the only way to get good Hatch chile outside of the state it’s grown in is to know someone kind enough to send it to you.
So every year during chile season (approximately right now), my mom sends me and my brother each a big box of fresh green chiles. She packs the chiles with newspaper to soak up moisture so they don’t rot (learned that the hard way), pokes holes in the boxes, and sends it 2-day mail. And once we have the chiles, they have to be roasted, peeled, and seeded. The whole process isn’t easy or cheap.
This year, Dave and I have decided that to skip the hassle, we’ll move to New Mexico.
Well, no, that isn’t why we’re moving. Really, it just worked out with our job situation. But green chiles (and easier access to some squeezy nephew cheeks that are also in New Mexico) is definitely icing on the cake.
Green chile huevos rancheros is my favorite way to eat green chiles, as well as probably my favorite breakfast. The way I like it, there’s a flour tortilla base, then beans, eggs (over-medium for me) and home fries on the tortilla, all topped by green chile sauce. Definitely a meal worth moving across the country for.
One year ago: Dimply Plum Cake
Printer Friendly Recipe
Green Chile Huevos Rancheros
4 servings
If you already have favorite recipes for home fries, pinto beans, and eggs, by all means, use them.
Green chile sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
½ tablespoon flour
½ cup chicken broth
4 ounces green chile, diced
pinch sugar
1 tablespoon chopped tomatoes (or tomato juice or sauce)
salt
In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it’s just browned around the edges. Add the garlic and stir constantly for about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Mix in the flour, and continue to stir, for about one minute. Slowly add the broth, still stirring, then the chile, tomatoes, sugar and salt. Bring to a simmer, then adjust the heat to low, cover, and let cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. (If your sauce is thinner than you like, remove the lid while it simmers.) Taste and adjust the seasonings, if necessary.
Home fries:
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ medium onion, thinly sliced
16 ounces Yukon gold potato, diced into ¼ inch cubes
½ teaspoon salt (kosher)
Heat the oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. (You can use a traditional skillet if you heat it well before adding the oil.) Add the potatoes, onions, and salt, and cover the pan. Cook over medium heat until the potatoes are tender and lightly browned, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the cover and cook until the onions and potatoes are cooked through and nicely browned, another 5-10 minutes. Adjust the seasonings if necessary.
Refried beans:
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
½ cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ medium onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon salt
Heat the oil over medium heat in a medium nonstick saucepan or skillet. Add the onions and cook until the edges start to brown. Meanwhile, using a potato masher, mash the beans until they’re mostly broken up. It’s fine if there are still some whole beans. (If you prefer your beans completely smooth, puree them in a food processor.) Stir the chicken broth into the beans. Add the garlic and cumin to the onions in the pan, and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the bean mixture and salt and bring to a simmer. Lower the heat to low to medium-low to maintain a bare simmer, and cook the beans until they’re your desired consistency, stirring often. It should only take a few minutes. Adjust the seasonings to taste. If they’re ready before everything else, just cover them.
Eggs:
1 teaspoon oil
4 eggs
salt
Heat the oil in a medium nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Crack each egg into a small dish. Carefully transfer the eggs to the skillet, then sprinkle them with salt. Add 2 tablespoons water and raise the heat to medium-high. Once the water simmers, cover the pan and lower the heat back to medium-low. Cook for about 3-6 minutes for over-medium eggs. Remove the lid and let the water evaporate.
Assembly:
Place a warmed 6-inch flour tortilla on each of four plates. Top each tortilla with one egg, a quarter of the beans, and a quarter of the potatoes. Divide the sauce evenly between each plate. (Alternatively, layer a tortilla, then beans, potatoes, an egg, and the sauce.)
this looks like something my husband would kill for – too bad we live in GA, so no hatch chilis for us 🙁
Yum! Oh how I miss green chile. Nothing does say home like green chile. Yay for the smoky heat that you can never get enough of. I think I better get my mom to ship me some; I’m not so lucky to be returning home.
Josie – Yeah, lame of me to write a blog entry about how this ingredient can’t be found, and then say, this recipe [that you can’t make because you’ll never find green chile] is so good! If you’re really committed, you can mail-order chiles. Or you can go ahead and try substituting anaheim chiles or even poblano.
Oh man, these look so good! And I’m starving…I’m making it my goal to someday try Hatch chiles. I’ve heard so many good things about them!
Congratulations on the move and ample suppy of chiles!
This recipe looks awesome, great combination of foods we love, but none of those hatch chiles here!
True, it’s hard to find decent Southwestern food in general up here in the Northeast. Makes me sigh. This is my kind of plate of food and maybe someday I’ll get to eat it. 🙂
Mhm! That looks delicious! Living in Southern California, we get such a nice variety of chilies and mexican food =) To go elsewhere would surely make me cry! New Mexico has some amazing chilies YUM!
Good luck with the move! I love huevos rancheros. Your dish looks gorgeous.
That looks fabulous and mouth-watering! I will admit that a few weeks ago when you said you were moving back, my first thought was, “Oh great, I hope she makes more Mexican/southwestern food!”
Shaw’s sells adobo in cans – it would be a very different taste than green chiles but I’m curious how the recipe would come out with that substitution. Hmmmm, brunch for Sunday?
Best of luck with your move! You’ll be keeping up the blog, right? 🙂
This looks so delicious! I have never had hatch chilies but they look great. I think it’s really nice that your mom would send you all those chilies. Mom’s are the best:)
Roshini – Yup, I certainly will still be blogging. In fact, this is the second move this blog has gone through.
Hm…do you mean chipolte peppers? I like those, but they’re incredibly spicy, so you’ll probably only want to use one, and then you’ll need something to bulk up the sauce with. Or, if you just mean adobo sauce, that might be an interesting substitute for the green chile sauce.
There really are all sorts of ways to make huevos rancheros; this is just the classic New Mexican way. Which of course is the best way. 😉
I keep hearing/reading about Hatch chiles, but have never tried them. This looks like the perfect way to start the day – yum! Good luck with your move!
*gasp* You’re moving to New Mexico?!? Wanna start sending *me* green hatch chiles??? While I didn’t grow up around them, they sound freaking fantastic! And I’m trying to think of South Bend / Hoosier things that I don’t get here… Um, pierogies maybe? Ooo, and Michigan blueberries. *sigh* Those huevos rancheros look fabulous!
Luckily I don’t have all ingredients on hand, or I’d be whipping these up right now. They look FANTASTIC. *stomach growling*
Good luck with your move! This looks delicious and I’ll be looking forward to recipes involving Hatch green chiles in the future once you settle down!
I didn’t know you were from New Mexico. You know, Bridget, that’s pretty darn close to Phoenix. Hmmmm…
Yummy with the green chili sauce. Looks delicious.
These look great! I just had 15lbs of roasted, peeled, and frozen fresh Hatch Chile’s shipped up to Boston! Already made a few dishes, can’t wait to try your version!
Thanks for the recipe. I miss being in Las Cruces and smelling the chilies being rolled around in those big roaster in front of markets. The wafts of those chilis make me crave being in NM. MMMMMM….
I just had my first Hatch chile sauce on my move to California! Please, learn from my mistake and just get rid of all your non-kitchen items now. It will make the move so much easier.
The hubby and I both looooove huevos rancheros. I might have to sub another type of chile and make some this weekend!
Looks delicious,good breakfast
Anytime I read something about green chiles/Hatch green chiles, I perk up. Nothing, at least to me, compares to New Mexican food. When I go back home, I stuff myself at every meal with either green or red or both. Where in NM are you moving? I keep trying to find a way back. sigh. I may just decide to pack up and move. Oh, and I’m a geologist, too.
Judy – I didn’t know you were from New Mexico! And a geologist to boot! I’ll be moving to Carlsbad. I think it’s going to be very interesting living in such a small town…
My folks have sent me a box of Hatch chiles every autumn since I moved from El Paso to Seattle, 20 years ago. This year, on the day they were to arrive, I received not a box redolent of Nuevo Mexico from a salivating UPS man, but a notice that my box had been damaged in shipment and “the contents destroyed.” Argh! And “shipper will be notified.” I wont’ go into details here; suffice it to say that UPS never notified my folks, restsitution was only forthcoming because the owner of the mailbox store they frequent values their business and paid for the shipping and contents out of his own till.)
The point of this post is, that, in desperation, I called Central Market here, in Shoreline WA to find out if Audi, my very favorite produce man in the world could help me find any kind of green chile and – lo, and behold! – they had boxes of Hatch long greens (Big Bens, no less!) for less per pound than my folks paid, 1600 miles closer to the source. Before you could say, “Fire up the grill,” I had them home, roasted, bagged and frozen.
Shop around, folks; miracles do occur in modern times!
Lucky for this displaced New Mexico boy, I live in the Dallas area and we have CENTRAL MARKET. Every August they have Hatch Chile Festival. Fresh peppers are shipped in and roasted on the premises…. That’s as close to Heaven as you can get. Some stores even fly the great flag of the state of New Mexico. Goin’ on right now. Had a Hatch chile cheeseburger and an omelet in the last couple of days. Next week, I’m making a stew and brewing a Hatch Pepper Beer.
just bought my first hatch peppers from wegmans in landover md. they been roasting them ouside the store and will do so for the next couple weekends. people are buying them by the case. i came home put one on a hunk of italian bread with a silce of tomato (locally grown). hell yeah, now i know why people are crazy about them.