Porch Pot Peppers

     Back in the Spring I was deciding what to grow in my porch pots.  I seem to choose the same things year after year: herbs and spices, some little grape tomatoes and maybe a larger heirloom variety.  It's all pretty predictable.  But this year I decided to add a poblano pepper plant to my assortment even though I wasn't sure how I would use the dark green fruits that are wide at the stem and taper down to a sharp point.



     This weekend I picked my first harvest of those peppers and realized I had to come up with a creative way to enjoy them. So I did some research.  Poblanos are one of the most popular grown in the fields of our neighbors directly to the south.  They are a mild variety of chili pepper and are so named because it is thought that they originated in the Mexican state of Puebla.  They have a dark thick skin and are considered to be on the mild side as far as chilis go, with a rating of 1,000-2,000 units on the Scoville heat scale.  Although when ripened and bright red that number increases significantly.  And even from the same plant 2 poblanos can have a surprising difference in intensity.  When the ripe poblano is dried it becomes an ancho chili and can be ground to create chile powder (note the difference in spelling there).  Poblanos are best when roasted over an open flame.  That brings out the flavor and also permits the tough skin to be easily removed.

     So with that knowledge I began to search for recipes.  One of the most popular ways to prepare poblanos is in a dish called chile rellano.  But that seemed like too much work, having to not only roast the peppers but then to stuff them and dip each one in an egg wash and then dredge in flour before cooking.  I wasn't that ambitious.  But I did find an interesting recipe in an unlikely place.  In the official on-line student newspaper of McNeil High School in Austin, TX, The Trailblazer, Nicole Meeks wrote an article about salsa made from roasted poblano peppers that delivers what she termed "a smoky rich kick."  That's just what I was looking for!

     The salsa (the Spanish word for sauce) would be my contribution to a party the next day. I roasted the peppers on my grill for a few moments until the skin became charred and blistered, then put them into a bowl and covered it for about 15 minutes to loosen the skin making it easier to remove.  Meanwhile I added some chopped onion, garlic, tomato (my own from a porch pot), and cilantro to my food processor.  After peeling away the skin I chopped the poblanos and added them to the mix and pulsed everything together.  The only thing it needed was a squeeze of lime and a couple turns of freshly ground pepper and it was ready to mellow in the chill chest overnight.

The result was well received.  The heat from the poblanos was just enough to make the salsa interesting.  As one guest said, "It doesn't punish, it just reminds."