Chicken and Plantain Stuffed Chili Rellenos with Homemade Enchilada Sauce, by Diane

On my recent return to Texas, I rekindled my love of chili rellenos! I forgot how good these things were. I wanted to recreate them back at home (already missing my family and that FOOD!!), but in a healthier version. Chili rellenos typically consists of the mild but large poblano pepper that is charred and then stuffed with cheese, battered, and deep fried. I usually get mine with chicken, and there are a variety of other ways that you can fill them.

Since I didn't want to bread or fry mine, and I always try to avoid cheese, I had to do some thinking on what to fill my version of chili rellenos with. I came up with a concoction of some of my favorite latin flavors, and they really combined nicely for an awesome dish! I also found a recipe for homemade enchilada sauce, after learning what crazy ingredients store-bought enchilada sauce contains. The enchilada sauce recipe was an amazing flavor- way better than store bought!

This recipe creates a pepper that still has a bit of crunch to it, which I've often eaten. I like my peppers softer, so next time I may steam them after removing the skin and before stuffing them.

Recipe for crockpot chicken enchilada sauce from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/super-easy-slow-cooker-chicken-enchilada-meat/

Guide to charring and prepping chili rellenos from: http://www.chow.com/recipes/29565-chiles-rellenos


Ingredients:

4 skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken broth
1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1/3 cup chili powder
2 tbsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp flour
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp cayenne (or more depending on your preferred heat level)
6 poblano peppers
EVOO
1 small yellow onion, cubed
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium yellow ripe plantains, cubed
1 small can mild green chiles (or hot if you want!)
1 can black beans, rinsed


Directions:

1. Place chicken in the bottom of a crockpot. In a blender, combine tomatoes through cayenne until well blended, and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. Remove chicken and shred, then return to sauce, setting the crockpot on warm.

2. In the last 30-60 minutes of the chicken's cooktime, prepare the poblanos by slicing them vertically down the center from top to tip, careful not to slice all the way through. Make a second cut to form a "T" shape right below the top (see the link for the prep of rellenos above for a great illustration). Using a spoon, remove the ribs and seeds of the peppers and discard. Set the peppers aside cut side up.

3. Now it's time to fire roast the chilis. If you have a gas stove, you can turn the flame to a medium setting and roast them directly on the burner until they blister and char on all sides. If not, you can place the chilis on your oven rack and broil on high, turning so all sides can char. After charring, place the chilis in a large bowl and cover tightly for 15 minutes to steam them. This allows for easy removal of the charred skin, which you should do carefully with a butter knife and discard the charred skin.

4. Preheat the oven to 350. In a large saucepan, heat EVOO on medium high heat. Add in onions and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add in garlic and chiles, cooking for another 2 minutes. Add in plantains and cook for 5 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add in the beans and cook for another 2 minutes and remove from heat.

5. In a 9x13 baking dish, pour enchilada sauce on the bottom to coat the dish. Place the chilis cut side up in a single layer. Stuff with the shredded chicken and plantain mixture, and pour remaining enchilada sauce over top. Bake for 20 minutes, covered. Remove cover and bake another 10 minutes until sauce is bubbling.

Mofongo, by Diane

This crazy-sounding Puerto Rican dish has been taunting me over the past few months. I first saw it on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives at this little place in Miami. A few weeks later, someone was presenting it on Best Thing I Ever Ate. A week after that, someone put up a post about how delicious it was on facebook. Finally, a friend took me to a restaurant in Philadelphia and guess what was on the menu...mofongo. I ordered it instantly- and it was SO good!!! Soon after I got home, I looked up some restaurants in the DC area that served it, and found a few- but as I called each one, I found they were ALL closed. Stuck dreaming about a dish that I couldn't get, I decided to take matters into my own hands this week and attempt it myself.

The dish is based around plantains that are deep fried and mashed in a mortar and pestle with deep fried pork or pork skins (chicharrones), tons of garlic, salt, and olive oil. Sometimes it is topped with a sauce or meat such as pork, chicken, or shrimp. Since I don't have a deep fryer nor do I love fried foods, I compromised and created this recipe. I sauteed the plantains in olive oil along with a bit of fat I trimmed from the pork I used, then ground it in a food processor before mashing it with a meat tenderizer (I don't own a mortar and pestle and it's way less work anyway). Since I knew that deep frying makes things juicy and thus my plantain mixture would be a bit dry, I decided to take the pork and create a sauce similar to the one I ate in Philly to go on top of the mofongo.

The result was good, but nowhere near what I had in the restaurant- which is not really a surprise since baking and sauteing is never quite as good as deep frying and since I am not puerto rican and the sauce was of my own creation! BUT- it was very good, very filling, and fairly healthy. I used the leftover mofongo mix to make into patties that I fried (w/ cooking spray!) and they made and excellent snack later on.

Ingredients:

Sauce:
 1 tbsp EVOO
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb. boneless pork chops, trimmed (reserve fat) and tenderized, then cubed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can stewed tomatoes, chopped (reserve liquid)
2 tbsp. orange juice
1-2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. chili powder

Mofongo:
4 tbsp. EVOO
2 tsp. garlic juice
Pork fat (trimmed from above)
5 green plantains, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. salt


Directions:

1. Make the sauce first. Start by heating EVOO in a saucepan over medium heat, add onions and cook until translucent about 2 minutes. Add in pork and cook until brown on all sides. Add garlic and red pepper, cook for 1 minute. Add in the remaining ingredients including the juice from the canned tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, stir, and cover.

2. While the sauce simmers, make the mofongo. Heat 2 tbsp. EVOO and 1 tsp. garlic juice in a saucepan over medium to medium high heat. Add in pork fat and half of the plantains (there should be enough room so that all plantains can brown evenly in one layer). Cook plantains, flipping once browned on the bottom, until both sides are brown. Remove from pan and place in bowl, set aside, and repeat this process with the second batch keeping the pork fat in the pan. Once all plantains have cooked, place into a food processor (including the pork fat and oil from the pan) along with the remaining ingredients. Grind finely, then transfer to a bowl and mash together with a tenderizer, adding salt if needed and mixing well.

3. Serve the mofongo with the sauce over top, spooning extra liquid down over it.

Plantains Two Ways, By Diane

This post is the second part of my Cuban adventure (the first part is the most recent post for Cuban Pork and Sweet Potato Slow Cooker Stew). I ADORE plantains, any way they come. I learned a lot about them in preparing for my Cuban feast last night, and decided to make them two different ways.

Plantains are like bananas in that they begin firmer and greener and end softer and brown. Green plantains have a more 'unripe' taste than the brown ones, which are sweeter. The brown ones usually get fried and are like a dessert item, called maduros (the 3rd photo down). The green ones usually get fried, then mashed and refried and sprinkled with salt to go with more savory items. These are called tostones (1st and 2nd photo). I've had maduros and tostones and love them both...so my kitchen adventure began.

There's no specific way to do either, you can't really mess them up. I chose to fry the maduros and rub them with brown sugar (or you can put them in some agave syrup but I didn't have any). For the tostones, I chose to bake them until they were crispy to make them a bit healthier. I mashed them into smaller pieces so that they could be like chips to go with the mango and black bean salsa I had as part of this meal, or they could be dipped into the stew. Enjoy!

Maduros:

Use plantains that are dark brown, the darker = the sweeter. Peel and slice them lengthwise, then cut into 2 inch long slices. Fry until both sides are brown and crispy. Rub with a little brown sugar until sugar melts and the maduros are coated. Serve warm.


Tostones:

Use plantains that are green. Peel and slice into 1/2 thick slices. Toss with 2 tsp. oil and 1 tbsp. salt (I used kosher salt). Place spaced out on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Spray the tops of the plantains too, and bake for 10 minutes at 400 or until bottoms are slightly browned.

Remove plantains and mash with a flat surface (I used a drinking glass), then flip over (brown side up) and place back on baking sheet, making sure they are spaced out. Spray tops of the plantains lightly with cooking spray, sprinkle with more salt, and bake for 15 minutes or until crispy.

Remove plantains and sprinkle with more salt if needed. Serve cooled.