Food52
This recipe was inspired by my maternal grandmother, an amazing woman, and a real mentor to me in the kitchen. She taught me so much through her love of food and cooking. She loved preparing full meals for her large extended family, which she did until she was ninety years old. I can't recall a single conversation with her that didn't begin with us both discussing what we had cooked (and eaten!) that day. - cookinginvictoria Many of the dishes that my grandmother cooked celebrated her Mexican heritage. As a child, I remember her making homemade flour tortillas on her immense gas stove, which was a novelty to me at the time. Everyone else I knew, including my mother, cooked on electric ranges. My grandmother also made red chile enchiladas, posole, and tamales. But her most acclaimed dish (at least to me, my sister and my cousins) was her pork green chile. This is not fancy food by any means, but simple and rustic Tex-Mex home cooking. Many years ago, I asked her for the recipe. She told me about the ingredients in the dish, but she didn't give me any real measurements -- it was a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I'm not sure she ever really measured ingredients -- she was an intuitive cook. Over the years, I have made my own version of her green chile. It is not quite my grandmother's recipe, but I like to think that if she were here, she would recognize it. When my grandmother made her green chile, she mostly used pork chops. I like to use two different cuts of pork -- stew meat from the hip or shoulder of the pig and side ribs for a richer, more porky flavor. My grandmother always preferred Hatch chiles, which I am the first to admit are the best green chiles in the world. However, one of the drawbacks of living in Canada is that Hatch chiles are impossible to get here. So now I add two different types of chiles to make this dish -- Poblanos for their mild and smoky flavor and Anaheims for their heat. If you can source Hatch chiles, by all means use them instead. When my grandmother made this dish, she would bring a steaming bowl of green chile to the table, and we would eat it like a stew. She would serve plenty of her homemade tortillas for sopping up the delicious juices as well as rice and pinto beans on the side. When I make this dish for my own family, I like to stuff flour tortiillas with black beans, chopped avocado, diced tomatoes, julienned radishes, grated Cheddar cheese, and chopped cilantro. I then make smothered burritos and top each stuffed tortilla with lots of green chile. Another great way to use this chile (green chile is truly versatile!) is to make huevos rancheros. Eggs and chile are one of my favorite food combinations. I love how a soft egg yolk tastes when it melds with spicy aromatic, porky green chile. Served with a soft tortilla to absorb all of the chile's juices, this is the kind of breakfast, brunch or dinner that to me is truly sublime.
