Chile Relleno de Picadillo - 174

There are two good news items to mention today:

One is the CHILES RELLENOS DE PICADILLO that we made for dinner last night (we actually made 8 of them), and the other is the fresh tortillas that we picked up from the local tortillería. They both fall into the asombroso (awesome) category.

When Javier grilled chicken the other evening, he also charred and peeled 8 chiles poblanos. These are the same kind that I used back in December for the Chiles en nogada and last week for the Huevos con migas. He charred, peeled and seeded them for me so that we could make CHILES RELLENOS DE PICADILLO this weekend.

Traditional recipes for any variation of a chile relleno (stuffed chile) can be quite fattening as they're usually egg-batter coated, stuffed with meat and/or cheese fillings that are high in calories, and then fried. We have come up with a lower call stuffing - the picadillo in this recipe - and we make an egg-white batter before baking them in the oven.

Picadillo is a ground meat filling to which diced potatoes, carrots, onions and other vegetables can be added. It can be highly seasoned, and I learned to make it with a handful of raisins thrown into the mixture. I learned this from an older cook in Guadalajara, Doña Sara, but saw it repeated in several restaurants and other homes over the years. Other homes I've stayed in simply filled the chile poblano with a slice of white cheese, and there is a restaurant in Houston that fills them with nuts, squash and raisins.

Once the chile relleno is stuffed, we lay them side-by-side in a greased casserole dish. We then whip the egg-whites into a frothy foam and add one of the egg yolks in at the end just to give the batter some color. We pour this mixture over the chiles in the greased casserole, then bake them while we make a sauce out of a little of the leftover picadillo, tomato sauce, and onions.

CHILE RELLENOS DE PICADILLO are good served with rice on the side, but last night we went without the rice so that we could eat more of the good, fresh corn tortillas. We had been at the tortillería at the right moment. The fresh tortillas were literally coming right off the press, and someone came out to ask us if we'd like some fresh ones and how many of them did we want. We took two dozen and then ate 2-3 of them on our way home!