One of the most glorious dishes in Mexico’s enormous repertory is chiles en nogada. The story goes that it was developed in Puebla by the Santa Monica Convent for General Iturbide’s visit, celebrating Mexico’s independence from Spain at the Treaty of Cordoba in the fall of 1821. It blends Puebla’s early fall fruit into a classic pork (or pork and beef) picadillo, stuffs that into roasted poblano chiles and bathes the whole thing in the most luxurious, creamy, ivory-colored sauce that celebrates the singular flavor of just-harvested local walnuts. Garnishing the sauce with the first-harvested pomegranates and parsley leaves echoes the red, green and white of the newly minted Mexican flag.
Sounds like a dish you have to experience in Puebla, right?
Well, while I encourage a visit to that beautiful, Talavera tile-clad, colonial town (or at least to nearby Mexico City) to experience the real deal during August and September, it’s possible to get close to the original in the United States.
First, let’s talk about those walnuts. The sauce is traditionally made with walnuts that have just been picked–that means the green fruit has just fallen off the walnut fruit, the cracked shell is opened, and the walnut meat is removed. That walnut meat is unlike anything else–it’s so fresh that you can easily peel the thin brown skin off of it, leaving you with an ivory–colored– not brown–walnut. The flesh is still a little pliable, not brittle or crisp, and it has a rich, gentle, nuanced flavor that always reminds me a little of pinenuts. Trouble is, those walnuts don’t make it far from the spot they’re cultivated. Even if they did, they’d probably be moldy by the time they arrived.
Walnuts you find for sale in markets and groceries are typically force-dried to keep them from molding. And in the drying, the walnut meat firms to a crispness and the thin brown skin adheres firmly to the nut, creating that unavoidable trace of walnut bitterness (bitterness is in the skin).
Chiles en nogada has become a big deal in Mexico these days. (Back when I lived in Mexico, they weren’t made much beyond Puebla and Mexico City.) That popularity has engendered market vendors in central Mexico who sell the peeled, ivory-colored walnuts from refrigerators in their stalls. The good news is that peeled (dehydrated) walnuts are becoming increasingly available (check online sources). But when I need to use grocery store walnuts, I choose halves (not pieces), give them a brief boil and soak (lots of the color and bitterness ends up in the water), then I scrub off as much of the softened skin as I can manage.
And those unique, Pueblan, early fall fruits? They are very specific varieties of peaches, apples and pears, which, when cooked into the complexly flavored filling, lose a touch of their uniqueness. Which means I encourage you to use what’s available to you. And now that the classic, endangered crystallized biznaga cactus has been outlawed in Mexico, I’ve suggested replacing it with crystallized pineapple.
This celebratory dish–like all celebratory dishes–is a labor of love, but the payoff is incredible.
Three notes: (1) Some traditionalists will instruct you to chop 1 ½ pounds boneless pork shoulder roast into ¼-inch pieces (easiest to do if you freeze the meat for an hour to firm it up) and cook it as you would the ground pork. Others will instruct you to cube the pork shoulder and simmer it until tender in salted water (add garlic, onion, bay and thyme), then coarsely shred it, pat it dry and brown it as you would the ground pork. (2) The goat cheese most people use in Puebla is a dryish, lightly aged disk. Our fresh goat cheese is a little tangier, so I’ve used a little less here. Some Mexican cooks use fresco cheese instead of goat cheese, so feel free to follow that path. (3) In the old-fashioned kitchens, they most frequently batter-fried the stuffed chiles (chiles relleno-style), making this rich dish even richer. I am following the approach of most modern cooks and serving them without the batter coating.
NOTE: This is an updated version of the recipe we featured in Mexico: One Plate at a Time.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups (7 ounces) walnut halves, preferably the peeled walnuts available online
- For the filling:
- 1/3 cup fresh pork lard or vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 pounds ground pork (preferably coarse ground)
- 1 medium (6-ounce) onion, cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
- 3 large (8-ounce) ripe round tomatoes, chopped into small pieces --OR-- 2 ½ 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes, blended until smooth
- 1 cup white wine, white vermouth or water
- 1 small pear, peeled, cored and chopped into ¼-inch pieces
- 1 apple (Honey Crisp or Granny Smith won’t disintegrate), peeled, cored and chopped into ¼-inch pieces
- 2 medium ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 1 small black-ripe plantain, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, preferably Mexican canela
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 cup chopped crystallized pineapple, chopped (¼-inch pieces)
- 3 heaping tablespoons pinenuts or sliced almonds, lightly toasted in a 325-degree oven until pale golden
- Salt
- For the chiles:
- 8 large (about 3 pounds total) fresh poblano chiles
- For the sauce and finishing the dish:
- 1 cup milk (plus more to thin the sauce if needed)
- 1/2 cup cream (or use additional milk for a less-rich sauce)
- 1 slice firm white bread, crusts removed and torn into several pieces
- 2 ounces (¼ cup) fresh goat cheese
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 to 2 teaspoons sweet or dry sherry
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, preferably Mexican canela
- 1 pomegranate, seeds removed
- A handful of flatleaf parsley, leaves pulled off
INSTRUCTIONS
Soak the walnuts. If your walnuts are peeled, simply soak them in water for a couple of hours to soften them for easy blending; drain. If your’s still have the skin, scoop them into a saucepan, cover generously with water and bring to a boil. After about 4 minutes, turn off the heat and let stand 2 hours. Drain the brown soaking liquid, then scrub with a toothbrush or stiff brush to get off as much of the softened brown skin as you can manage.
Make the picadillo. In a very large (12-inch) skillet or small Dutch oven, heat the lard or oil over medium. Brown the meat in 2 batches, spreading it in a single layer, then, as it browns underneath, breaking it up and turning it to get even color, about 8 minutes. Scoop onto a plate or rimmed baking sheet, leaving behind as much fat as possible. Add the onion and stir for a couple of minutes until it turns translucent. Add the garlic and stir for a minute, then add back the meat. Stir in the tomatoes and wine, vermouth or water. When the liquid comes to a boil, add the chopped fresh fruit, raisins, cinnamon and thyme. Cover with a lid and simmer until the meat is tender, about 20 minutes, until the mixture holds its shape firmly in a spoon. Taste and season with table salt, usually about 1 ½ teaspoons. Cool, then mix in the crystallized pineapple and pinenuts.
The filling can be made several days ahead and refrigerated, covered. Bring it fully to room temperature before serving.
Prepare the poblanos. Roast the poblanos over an open flame, on a hot grill or close up under a hot broiler, turning them until the skin is uniformly charred. (If you have access to a fryer, you can turn the chiles in the hot oil until the skin is evenly blistered. This version produces the least-cooked chile.) Collect the chiles in a large bowl, cover with a dish towel and let cool. Rub off the charred (or blistered) skin, carefully cut an opening down one side from the top shoulder to the tip. Carefully use your index finger to dislodge all the seeds, then very briefly rinse out the chiles to remove all the seeds. As the chiles are done, lay them cut-side down on a rimmed baking sheet lined with paper towels.
Prepare the sauce. Scoop the drained walnuts into a blender. Add the milk, cream, bread, goat cheese, sugar, sherry and cinnamon. Blend as smooth as possible. (This works best in a high-speed blender like a VitaMix. If you’re working with a standard blender, blend the mixture as smooth as possible without letting it run so long that the mixture heats up.) Taste and season with salt, usually about a scant teaspoon. In Mexico, there are cooks who make the sauce quite sweet and others who lean in the salty-savory direction. This version of the sauce hovers right between salty and sweet, which (I believe) is the best of both worlds.
The sauce can be made a day or so ahead and refrigerated, covered. Bring it fully to room temperature before serving.
Serve. This dish is most commonly served at room temperature. However, I gravitate to the version in which the filling is warm. If you’re like me, heat the filling in a saucepan over medium, stirring regularly until it is just warm through. Spoon a portion of the (warm or room temperature) filling into each chile through the opening you made, then close the chile firmly back together. Place one filled chile on each of 8 dinner plates, seam-side down.
Spoon a generous portion of sauce over the chile. For a dramatic presentation, sprinkle pomegranate seeds over the upper third of each chile and parsley leaves over the lower third, letting the sauce show its beautiful ivory whiteness in the middle. Or simply scatter pomegranate seeds and parsley over the sauce and you’re ready to serve.
