Sunday May 18th 2014 (Easy Green Chile)

Easy Green Chile

In Colorado you can find Green Chile on almost anything, hot dogs, fries, burgers, burritos, hash browns you name it. There are lots of jarred or frozen versions available, but there aren't any that compare to a bowl of freshly made green chile and it smells great too! Here is my (err... my mom's really) recipe for fast and easy green chile so you can have a nice big bowl or smother anything your heart desires.

Ingredients

1 tbsp of minced garlic

2-3tbsp of olive oil

1 medium sized pork loin

8-10 medium roasted/grilled Anaheim peppers skinned, deveined and deseeded

1 can of petite diced tomatoes drained (save juice)

64oz vegetable broth

2tbsp-1/3cup flour (for thickening)

pinch of sugar to cut acidity (optional)

Directions

Heat olive oil in the bottom of a large pot

Brown garlic lightly in the same pot.

Add pork loin chopped into bite size or smaller pieces ( I use meat scissors and chop it directly into the pot to save on some dishes as well as time) brown pork loin till it is cooked thoroughly.

While pork is browning chop or food process the peppers into approximately 1/4 pieces.

Add the peppers as well as any juice from the peppers into the meat as well since a lot of the flavor is in the juice.

Cook for 3-4minutes to allow the peppers to heat up with the pork and the flavors to mingle. 

Add the drained petite diced tomatoes, DO NOT discard the juice yet!

Add about 48oz of the vegetable broth into the pot and allow to heat to a simmer.

Take about 1/3 of the remaining vegetable broth and in a separate bowl whisk in a couple tablespoons-1/3cup of flour into it. How much flour you add determines how thick you want the chile. (I personally prefer my chile fairly thick and use about 1/4-1/3 of a cup) pour the slurry into the chile and stir. If you need to thicken it up use either some of the remaining vegetable broth or spoon some broth out of the chile and whisk the flour into it first or you will get flour lumps (they don't taste very good)

Now you get to do a taste test! When doing a taste test make sure that you allow the sample to cool or else it will seem spicier than it actually is. If the chile is too acidic add a pinch or so of sugar to help cut the acidity. If the chile is too spicy add some of the tomato sauce from the diced tomatoes. If you use up all of the tomato sauce and it is still too spicy use some or all of the remaining vegetable broth to help cut down the spice as well. Once you get the taste just right let it simmer till the rest of your food is ready and then dive in!

Our favorite way to eat the green chile is over shredded rotisserie chicken and bean burritos.