A couple of weeks ago my wife and I picked up 30 pounds of Big Jim green chiles from a local grower - Sichler's Snake Ranch Farm - here in Socorro County.
The chile was roasted for us on the spot, and we fortunately remembered to bring a big plastic bucket-thing in which to carry the dripping bag home.
The real chore came next: peeling the burnt skin off of each chile. For this one must wear rubber gloves, as chile seeds tend to burn skin, a fact which I ignored resulting in what was similar to a sunburn on my hands. That's when I remembered to put on the gloves.
After everything is peeled, the stem is remeoved and seeds are scraped out. Next comes grinding the chile in a food processor and freezing the chopped chile in one cup portions in Zip-lock freezer bags.
We now have about a year's worth of fresh frozen locally grown green chile in the freezer! It's been said that you know someone is a New Mexican by the amount of their green chile in the freezer. This has become a yearly ritual for us ever since moving to New Mexico.
We prefer the Big Jim variety, a medium hot chile. A milder chile variety is Joe Parker, and hotter varieties include Sandia and jalapenos. There's also the X-Hot Sichler Fresh Mix. Whichever, they all are high in Vitamins C and A and phosporous.
Chile can also help with weight loss. According to one study, obese patients taking chile peppers burned an extra 80 calories a day. The ancient Mayas used chile to treat coughs and sore throats. It stimulates gastric juices and the organs to aid in digestion and flush out illness more quickly. Creams made from chile are made to treat joint pain from arthritis and pain from shingles.
And green chile makes everything taste better!
Of course we also enjoy the red (which is a "ripened" green). The best sun dried red chile powder we've found - what we use for spicing up an untold number of dishes - is from Sichler's Produce in San Antonio (seven miles south of Socorro).
San Antonio is famous as the birthplace of Conrad Hilton, whose father owned and operated a general store in Socorro. Hilton also opened a bar in San Antonio, and the first Hilton hotel. The remnants of the hotel can still be seen, and the original bar is now inside the Owl Cafe and Bar, home of the first green chile cheeseburger. The Owl has been around since the early 1940s.
In 1944, when the first atomic bomb was tested at what is now known as White Sands Missile Range, it was not uncommon to see Robert Oppenheimer and other physicists having a beer and burger at the Owl. During the time of the Trinity test tiny San Antonio - 30 miles from the test site - had become a vitual Army camp, with tents, a mess hall, a tent movie theater and hundreds of soldiers.
Residents of San Antonio, now elderly, recall that summer with the soldiers all over the place. Many also remember seeing - or hearing - the blast on July 16, 1944.
Farmers and ranchers recollect chickens and cows being burned on one side, especially in the vicinty of Bingham, which was only 20 miles from ground zero.
Although winds that morning dispersed the mushroom cloud toward the northwest - towards Carrizozo and Corona, one wonders if the chile fields in the Rio Grande valley were affected by any radiation that day. If so, it must have been for the better since Socorro County chile is superior to the more-famous Hatch chile.
My first experience with the "green" was in 1989 when I moved to Santa Fe, and had my first taste of huevos rancheros with green chile at Maria's New Mexican Kitchen. It was love at first taste. Both sweet and hot. The best green chile balances the heat with flavor. You could say that the heat is secondary to the flavor.
Ever since then, I've learned that good green chile - from hot to mild - improved everything but deserts. But wait...there's also chile jelly. And chile cocoa. And green chile apple pie. And...and...and...
My wife Vanessa has even made wine from red chiles. We add chile to scrambled eggs, soups and stews, hamburgers, pizza toppings, and of course burritos of all types.
Whether you spell it chile (like here in New Mexico) or chili (like further east) it's all good.
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