I have been craving Chele Rellenos. But, they come covered with an eggy batter that I really don't want to deal with. I have been trying to figure out how to make them work, and I thought I had it, but I completely failed. Ugh.
First fail, trying to use Anaheim peppers. I bought both Pasilla and Anaheim, to test their flavors out. I roasted them in the oven, and that worked perfectly. First, I cut the tops off and scooped the seeds out, to get rid of some of the heat. I have tried this before and they were too hot (I don't remember where I got the recipe, and I wanted to try it myself this time). I placed them in a glass square container with a lid to sweat them. You want to do this to peel the skins off, because they can be hard to chew through and eat. After sweating them, I peeled the skins off as best as I could...but the silly little Anaheims had fallen apart, and the skins wouldn't come off. Ugh, the Pasillas win on this one.
While they were roasting and sweating, I made the batter using a recipe for tempura batter that I had. I thought this would be perfect. You have to let it rest a bit to let the gluten build and bind, then you can add more water to thin it out if needed.
After the chiles were peeled, I tried to stuff them with a mixture of vegan cheeses. This didn't work very well because the chiles had fallen apart and were almost in pieces, especially those little Anaheims. I was then given advice by Chef KC (my dad) to put them in the freezer to firm them up so they wouldn't fall apart as I tried to batter and cook them.
After about 15 minutes in the freezer, I thinned the batter out and tried to cook a little aAnaheim in some hot oil on the stove. I wasn't happy with the results. I don't really like the idea of frying food at home by myself. I don't think the oil drains out properly, and it gets way too greasy. I tried a Pasilla, and it wasn't that great, either. So I thickened up my batter with some whole wheat bread crumbs, covered a square glass pan with some of it, placed some peppers in there, and tried to cover them with more batter, the best I could. Not much success, but I tried. After baking for a while, I tried them. The batter was thick, and I enjoyed it even though it wouldn't come out of the pan well. The cheese was melty, but the chiles were HOT. Too hot for me. I could not eat any of it. Maybe I am a wimp, but it wasn't edible. The sauce, however, was amazing.
It's sad that the only good thing to come out of this was an awesome recipe for sauce. UGH.
I'll try again someday.
