This looks terrific!

Looks like great recipes and beautiful presentation! I have never tried brown sugar in my red chili sauce, might have to try that.

Ohhh…NICE! Thanks, Lynn!

OMGosh! I Thank you, LynnMN! My Hubby thanks you!

The food does look quite delicious. But also familiar, but for the white stuff on the beans.

Lynn, I have a question for you (or for others to contribute to).

The cultures and cuisines of all four states along the southern US border (and in turn, their near neighbors) have been influenced for centuries by the people and practices that have come north. We all have access, more or less, to the same ingredients and flavors.

What is it about such food in New Mexico that's unique or different from what's found elsewhere?

Thanks

“My Hubby thanks you!”

Mine, too!👍🏻

Lynn, I‘m in SoCal and spell it CHILE, but I do see CHILI occasionally. LOL, kind of like mantel and mantle here on Houzz. Distinct entities!

Very beautiful plate, LynnNM, thanks !

Thank you for sharing the recipe !! I looove to dabble in mexican cuisine, I think it's my favorite :)

We have a small mexican grocery called Lindo that I can find quite a few ingredients, including a good variety of the dried chiles that are so fabulous (maybe I said chilis interchangeably, haha!) . And happily, our grocery stores sell fresh poblanos and Anaheims.

I would love to have better access to your hatch chiles, or get myself to New Mexico soon ! Enjoy your local harvest and thanks again for sharing the recipe and the lovely mental picture of the historic hotel/restaurant your friend ran!

Visiting my mom in Michigan (October 2023), I found fresh poblanos in their farmers market and made this for her and my brother (and my daughter flew in for the weekend too, she made the Mexican rice ! I think my sauce (it's under the chile) was just a simpler tomato sauce,from my memory based on Diana Kennedy

The filling was kind of bursting at the seams, and my breading is perhaps falling off but my Mom and brother liked it ! I use mashed potatoes with the cheese in the filling, maybe that's weird but I copy a restaurant up here does that and it fills up the pepper nicely.

I edited to try to make this post 'read' better

Wow what an interesting idea! Looks delicious! BTW, where are you from in Michigan???

Through the years when the kids were growing, rellenos was one of my favorite meals to make them.. My son and daughter's preferences were polar opposite, and I accommodated them as best I could with such joy. Refried beans for my son, but must be whole beans for my daughter... he wouldn't touch the rellenos but loved a seasoned chicken and flour tortilla burrito... but only corn tortillas for my daughter, and rice was essential for her, but my son wouldn't touch it.... etc etc, It's so funny in retrospect, I was a short order 'Mexican' cook in my way, I'd say I made it once every month or two for a few years there! And invariably husband would walk in from work just in time after all was on the table (yes, I was a stay-at-home mom for some of those years - was so fun and I was very lucky - dh is a good cook too and often I would do prep for a meal so he could do the fun part and cook when he got home) .

And there was usually plenty of leftover beans, sauce, cheese, corn tortillas etc that I could make a nice tortilla 'pie' type of thing. And we perfected making corn tortillas from dried masa... it's so easy when you get the texture of the dough figured out (I use parchment circles on the tortilla press) , and they are sooo much better than the premade ones - cooking with the kids was very fun but those days are in the past now that they're grown - maybe now and then at the holidays :))

Sorry if I've overshared (feeling sheepish) .

I just tried to pm you but couldn’t.

I sent a testing message - have only done that once before and it worked then...

I am from Burton, Michigan near Flint ! Left right after high school, 1980

I’m from Mt. Clemens. North of Detroit about 40 miles on Lake St.Clair.

Lynn, thank you! That looks delicious and now I’m hungry!

Back in the late 60’s-early 70’s when this was a small town, the first Mexican restaurant opened here. For a long time it was the only one and it was heavenly. Their chiles rellenos were my favorite, even though I had never eaten them before, someone recommended them and I was hooked. My baby daughter’s first trip to a restaurant as an infant was there. They managed to stay in business for many years and finally had to close their doors around 15 years ago when the owner passed away. As far as I am concerned there still is no comparison. Even when I came to Albuquerque a lot, there were a lot that came very close though.

Lynn, I'll tell you honestly that the words you found seemed to have a bit of doubletalk and weren't describing anything I find familiar. Mexican restaurants here are of various kinds. Those that serve Americanized food. Those that use authentic styles but maybe of mixed regional sources. Then, there are increasingly more that specialize in regional dishes or specific ingredients, be it seafood, dishes from Michoacan, Jalisco, or wherever. I've been to one that specialized in different kinds of mole. Another I went to that was terrific, that specialized in lamb dishes (which is also a regional style, from where I don't know).

What do people make to eat at home? Recipes they find that they like. There's no particular uniformity to one style that I've seem. Home preparations tend to be simpler, like your recipes above.

Different kinds of chile peppers are chiles here, I've never seen anything otherwise. Chili is something different, and is as you describe.

Black beans? Rarely. Sauce on the side vs sauce on the dish? This varies with the dish.

Thanks for responding though. I've had a few enjoyable trips to New Mexico and I recall that while the "local" food and cooking styles I encountered were good, they didn't seem all that different nor as diverse as what we access to here in California. Maybe the starting point is the regional styles directly across the border from where you are plus what was brought by the early settlers from the south? As it is here.

Later edit to add:

The restaurant that served delicious lamb dishes is El Borrego (The Sheep), a little hole in the wall place (as so many good Mexican restaurants are, aside from food trucks as nancy mentioned below) in San Diego.

I’ll emphasize what Elmer has written regarding regional cuisine from Mexico, especially in Southern California.

Because of the large number of Oaxacans in Los Angeles, any number of restaurants identify their cuisine as from that region, as do food trucks (popular in the greater LA area). Same for Jalisco, Michoacán, Yucatan, Baja, and other regions.

There are also large numbers of Guatemalans and Salvadorans here, and there’s some crossover between Southern Mexican and Central American cuisine.

Chile is the plant and vegetable (fruit?). Type of beans depends on the region of Mexico, as does yuca.

https://lataco.com/oaxacan-restaurants-koreatown-indigenous

Chili powder here means the mix of cumin, dried chili powder, and other spices . It does not matter how you spell it. It is used to make the soup ”chili”

https://www.publix.com/search?searchTerm=chilie%20powder&srt=products

I would assume that if you hunted up a Hispanic grocery store, you could get plain ground chile powder.

The only other ground red pepper is cayenne.

ETA: I could order from A, but I am not paying their prices!

That looks really good Lynn, thanks for posting it. Too bad someone can't even share a favorite recipe without it sparking a pathological need in some to argue.

The rest of us appreciate you taking the time to post this.

I definitely appreciate the post, and it makes me want to get back to New Mexico - I haven't spent enough time there, I experienced just one small trip through while traveling to Alaska as a 20 year old , 42 years ago !!! I loved a food network episode where Giada visited Santa Fe. I learned about asking for red, green, or 'Christmas' .

One thing unique to New Mexico is Hatch Chiles ! I hadn't heard of Big Jim until this thread. Every now and then the hatches make it to our grocery store without their varietal name. One time we had a good amount and I made Hatch chili , spicy and delicious all right !

My husband is a Californian so I know about the pride of people from there ;)) He laughs so hard along with me at the well-known SNL skit .

Every now and then we get a sunny day, he will sigh and say, 'it's like California' and I reply, 'no it's not, it's Alaska' . Another fun thread would be regional differences in the US, if we could run it without any 'gotcha' questions .

Elmer, in an attempt to be helpful, I'd like to let you know that your use of the word doubletalk comes across as rude, whether you meant it that way or not; and the adjective 'a bit' does nothing to mitigate the rudeness .

If I may suggest a better approach, consider being thankful for a response and then express your different experiences politely, without the 'gotcha' tenor, as though it were a setup.

Fine. Recognizing that like many people, I read comments very quickly and without feeling a need to be so careful to be able to recite the words verbatim an hour later, my comment was my reaction to reading that in New Mexico, sauces were put "on the dish" versus "on the side". "On the dish" and "on the side" are two ways to say the same thing. "On the side" and "put on top of the food", different.

Besides not resonating with my own experiences, I was confused.

Maybe not everyone thinks hasty reading and writing are to be expected. What I read didn't make sense and that was my comment.

Edit - Oh and PS, I don't practice gotchas and setups. I'm sorry to Lynn and to you and others who may think so. Why would anyone go to the trouble to do that?

And another example, ironically, of misunderstanding intent and the message that was desired to be conveyed.

Hastiness doesn't necessitate rudeness though... perhaps more careful word choices and a short consideration of how it might read to others .

I'm glad it wasnt an intentional 'gotcha' , it did read that way to me.

It is fun to discuss Mexican food, authentic or not, and I hope I've done nothing to discourage that with what I've typed ..

Even here in my small city, Anchorage, we are fortunate to have some entrepreneurs doing amazing food !

I understand confusion based on our informal interactions - I tend to overthink. But let's all err on the side of kindness

Dish is an ambiguous term and I'm sympathetic to the confusion, it's our amazing yet ambiguous English language ... anyway, can we try to be friendly and get along ?

It's okay with me if you'd like a chance to rewrite that , Elmer J Fudd

Editing to say, I see the comment is deleted, that's good and understandable :)

Elmer, are you on the spectrum? I'm being serious. Because I, for the life of me-cannot figure you out.

Back to the recipe!

Lynn, While I cannot find the powdered chilies to make the sauce here, I think the Ortega Taco sauce will be close. I can find the stuff for the actual rellenos., which I love.

Have you ever made any stuffed with hamburger meat? I used to get some at a closed restaurant here that had both beef and cheese in them.

Going on the menu for next week or the one after.

Thanks.

Maybe there are variations but I've never seen chile rellenos stuffed with anything other than cheese. Ground beef is not a common ingredient in Mexican food.

Chili powder is most suitable for the dish traditionally served at Super Bowl parties or on rainy days, with or without beans, in a soup bowl.

Ground chile is available (and is a common ingredient). The way to tell the difference is that ground chile powder has the name of one (and usually, only one) type of chile shown on the label, and usually nothing else.

Chile is used for flavor as well as heat from mild to hot so what's used makes a difference in the resulting taste.

All that aside, of course you should and will make what you like with ingredients available to you. I'm surprised that real fresh or dried chiles in whatever form aren't easily found where you live.

.

I went crazy with enthusiasm and just ordered 5 pounds of fresh Hatch chiles from

https://www.hatch-green-chile.com/products/fresh-hatch-chile

$35 +$15 shipping so that's $10 bucks a pound , oh well, I've been pretty frugal in other ways ! And a trip to New Mexico this fall is not in the budget :))

I went for the mild, called Machete and Joe Parker - the Big Jim's are listed as medium (I'm a wimp these days for spice, but I do miss it and can handle some for sure !)

I will make a Hatch chile stew and as many rellenos as I can manage, I think they'd freeze nicely too, even after being stuffed.

I have experimented with different fillings, I have a Oaxacan cookbook by Bricia Lopez with 'Chiles Rellenos de Picadillo" with Shredded chicken. Another one I've tried is 'Chiles en Nogada' stuffed with ground meats, fruits , etc and served in a walnut cream sauce - out of 'The Taste of Mexico' by Patricia Quintana - like all of her recipes it's complicated and sized for 16 servings (winters are long here and even though I cut corners it was a project !) It's out of her section for Central Mexico and I was inspired by having it at a restaurant in San Francisco right after our one and only trip to Mexico with the elementary school aged kids.

Thanks again, LynnNM for sharing the recipe and getting me inspired ! I think chile rellenos is my favorite dish ever, honestly, I have a vivid picture of your friend and her place and feel warmed by that and will treat myself to it more often !

Thank, Lat62. I’m so glad and look forward to hearing about how your different rellenos turn out. Okay, now I’m hungry for some myself 🥴!

Sherry, I don’t think salsa will give you the flavor you’re looking for, but you can try. I’ve never made rellenos with ground meat in them, but I did have some at a restaurant once that were stuffed with cheese and ground beef, etc. not bad, but I prefer to stick with just the cheese.

Elmer, you sure do know how to stir the pot!

Lynn, the Ortega is not salsa. It is just a red sauce. More than likely, I would just omit it.

Sherry, oh then try it by all means!

" Elmer, you sure do know how to stir the pot! "

Sure. That way, nothing and nobody get burned.

Your recipe looks good. We're retirees and are usually inclined to follow the "less is more" mode of home cooking. We have too many good Mexican restaurants around (of all types) to warrant going to the trouble of doing it ourselves.

It's funny that a lot of what some think is "real", or perhaps all that's available in their areas and thus what they know, are evolved Americanized versions that remain "influenced" by the real thing but are inauthentic. One of my grandkids loves Chipotle. It pains me to take them there but I figure fine, they have a lifetime to hopefully explore and refine their preferences.

The emergence of restaurants staying loyal to dishes and practices from specific areas are the real thing and are usually much better. .

At least in my area, the same thing has happened with Chinese food and also food from the Indian subcontinent. After the Americanization process of being "boiled down" to the essence and becoming boring, it's easy now to find great variety. Restaurants that specialize in regional favorites and styles are easily found and offer much tastier variations than the generic cooking so many became used to.

Yes, here too we see the Americanization of many restaurants. I’ve always thought that it was most likely to make the foods more appealing to the tourists, as New Mexico (like California) depends a lot on our tourist industry. Our NM foods can get quite spicy hot. When my Michigan family and friends visit we know where to take them for our NM experience AND where they have the mild chile dishes🥴!
I still remember DH & I taking my parents to The Shed right off The Plaza in Santa Fe for dinner. I ordered them the mild red chile on their enchiladas and that mild was still much too hot and spicy for my parents! It’s definitely different from place to place, but we love The Shed and eat there frequently’

Along with Mexican, Vietnamese, Thai and Indian subcontinent restaurants in my area almost always ask for the degree of heat desired in dishes, or respond favorably to an unsolicited request. Sometimes it's the choice from mild-medium-hot, or a few Indian places will ask for a number ranging from 1- mild to 10-very hot.

Dingy and informal Mexican places, which like food trucks often have the best food, have choices of salsa that can be requested or even help-yourself salsa bars . It's easy to up the Scoville scale by adding hotter salsa. Whatever was used to cook the food gives it flavor, the supplemental salsa adds the heat.

In the Southern California context, Americanization of ethnic foods mainly occurs with chain restaurants, or in areas with few new immigrants. Definitely not a problem in Greater Los Angeles judging by the number of languages our officials ballots have — 18 besides English. (I had to look up Telegu; a Dravidian language in several Indian states.)

Nancy, I was referring more to trends over time as much as anything else. I agree with you about how things are now but there are still gringo Mexican restaurants and Americanized other styles that people seem to like.

I grew up in SoCal as I think you've mentioned you did too.

Chinese restaurants when I was a kid, when there were no chains? Fried shrimp or deep fried egg rolls (or egg drop soup) for appetizer choices, followed by chop suey, sweet and sour pork, maybe egg foo yung, accompanied by fried rice. Green tea ice cream or fortune cookies for dessert.

For sure one source of the real thing, traditional preparations, in the LA area (if used carefully) is to go to ethnic neighborhoods. There are also good places of all kinds all over. We have the same thing in the Bay Area and it's a bit more focused sometimes. You want Chinese? There are many areas with a concentration of Chinese regional restaurants but another with mostly Taiwanese restaurants. They're different, of course. And as with SoCal, there are Vietnamese neighborhood restaurants, of which some are culturally Vietnamese and others are Chinese Vietnamese. Also different although dishes of a different type are often found in the other type, in this case.

Fun food thread, thanks again LynnNM !

Just to push back on semantics ... Elmer, when you introduce the term Americanize to the discussion, let's remember that the subject cuisine is very American, in terms of our shared continent :) For the life of me, I can't think of how to come up with a play on 'US-ize', (not trying to offened, just trying to joke a little bit. Perhaps gringo-ize is the word of choice? )

And that reminded me of my lovely lunch here a couple of months ago :

https://www.elgreengosak.com (not to claim it's 'authentic' Mexican, just that it's a broad attitude)

If you have a spare minute, check out the website, it's got lovely pictures and food thoughts .

Plenty of multiculturalism to go around :))

lat62, I think in common usage, as "American" is the word used for the nationality of people from the US, and for things that come from here or styles and practices that are common here, there's no ambiguity or cultural misappropriation in saying "Americanized". I think the term is especially common when used to describe food from a different tradition that's adapted or changed to more closely appeal to tastes and preferences of Americans.

I took at look at the website you linked to and my immediate impression was how moderate its prices are for Alaska. You could accumulate a retirement nest-egg by eating there regularly.

I do have to say - the menu to my eye is decidedly gringo. Nothing wrong with that, it's what many people prefer. For me, it's okay once in awhile but not when there are more authentic and unique choices available.

I keep forgetting to ask you - is your user name symbolic of your living at or near the 62nd latitude line in Alaska?

I know nothing of Chinese restaurants and their menus before I was an adult. My father was raised on Italian food, and that remained his lifelong preference — no Chinese meals during my childhood. Luckily my mother was also raised on Italian food, and skilled in its preparation.

Thanks for a quick response, I agree 'American' is common usage for us US and Canadian 'northerners', I was trying to push back regarding accurate geographical representation versus the vernacular. Does that make sense? It's meant to be in good fun . Let's all agree that chile rellenos are American ?

Ahhh, to say Greengo food truck it is decidedly gringo is fine and agreed upon, but the giant barbecue smelling of al pastor pork was decidedly Alaskan (as in, Alaskan grown pork - apologies to my vegetarian daughter) And, you're right, affordable ! Only a small dent in my nest egg

In case I visit my LA in-laws soon, can you reference some of your authentic and unique choices ? I love good restaurant recommendations !

Editing to say : Food trucks, hole in the wall, all reccommendations are welcome !

Oh, I just noticed you asked about my username... yes lat62 is based on my latitude although I have fessed up previously that it is really lat61, here in Anchorage, my mistake - I started here posting on the garden forums

When I am completely undecided as to what NFL football team to root for, sometimes I will base my decision on where I think I could get the better taco...... Works for me.

Okay, check out the tacos wherever the Detroit Lions are !