Edible Antics - Having Fun With Food: Maturing Peppers Give Full Flavor to Roasted Green Chili Parties!

Front page news last week featured the latest in high-tech, anti-aging remedies, - remedies, as if aging was a malady from which one needed to recover. More accurately, youth is what must be remedied. Maturity is time spent fixing and compensating for the many mistakes caused by youth's hapless, self-absorbed sense of immortality. Every one of us has a "My name is Earl" list, -that's life. So we spend our mature years addressing it, and gradually exchange hubris for wisdom. All I can say is "Oh, to be a bell pepper!"

Put a bell pepper in front of a mirror. The pepper doesn't study its reflection and despair, "Ah, I'm losing my tone. My skin is sagging. How many new wrinkles today?... I used to be firm and crisp. What happened?"

A young pepper may anxiously long to grow large and ripe. In anticipatory excitement, it awaits to be picked, snapped open, and splash its juices out into the world. At that instant, it announces its over-abundant, fresh vitality! The pepper screams, "Bring on the salad greens!- I'll flavor them! I'll give them everything I've got -my fresh from the earth, raw, perky bountiful goodness. Now, at this moment, I stand, radiating my glorious, colorful promise of health to all who partake of me! I am a pepper!"

And what does a pepper say who's been in the crisper too long?..well, pretty much the same sentiment, except the words differ. This time it says, "Bring on the chili! I'm goin' to a party, - a pepper party! Family reunion time! Time for a HOT time in the old pot tonight! Come on anchos! Where you been poblanos,- my old cousins? Woo-hoo - habanero, you hot thing - you're sizzlin! YES! YES! It's time to ease myself down into that warm, bubbling tomato bath. Time to relax my fibrous cellulose. Time to check out what's been happenin' in the cupboard. HELLO onions! garlic! and beans! Spices, let me introduce myself and absorb your essence. To this chili I give my full pepper goodness. Take my flavor - take my texture - take all of me, - I AM YOURS! Mixed with my fellow foods, we are a complete, bountiful, nutritious meal. We satisfy and sustain. We are CHILI!

And what happens later to the discarded, left-over chili, or the forgotten pepper that shriveled in the crisper? Are there onion tears? Nope, there are not, -just shouts of "I'm headin' to the compost! Here I am worms, insects, and micro-organisms. Let's make some soil! Get busy everybody, - time to grow some new peppers!"

Peppers with attitude! - not spritzes and creams.

Click on 'continue reading...' for the Eldorado Grill's recipe for Roasted Garlic Green Chile Sauce'.

Roasted Garlic Green Chile Sauce

This recipe comes from the Eldorado Grill Cookbook. The Eldorado Grill is a popular Madison, Wisconsin restaurant featuring gourmet Southwestern foods. This green chile sauce adorns some of their pork, chicken, steak, tamale and enchilada entrees.

1 quart chicken stock
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 Tablespoons roux
1 1/2 cups New Mexico green chiles
1/2 small bunch cilantro
3/4 teaspoon salt

To make the roux:

1 stick unsalted butter
1 loose cup flour

Melt butter in medium saucepan. Add flour a little at a time, stirring constantly. Cook on very low heat until slightly browned, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate roux for up to 2 weeks. If cold, warm roux in the microwave for 10 seconds to soften it. Yields 1 cup.

To make the Roasted Garlic Green Chile Sauce:

Combine chicken stock and garlic in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until sauce is reduced by one third.

Pour through strainer into another saucepan, pushing softened garlic through strainer with the back of a spoon.

Bring sauce back to a boil; add roux, stirring vigorously with whisk to remove all lumps. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Let cool 20-30 minutes. Combine sauce, chiles, cilantro and salt in a blender. Blend until smooth.

Heat when ready to serve. Yields 3 1/2 cups.

Like people, some foods get better with age. Such as:

Extra Trim Ribeye Steaks