Groceries 101: How to roast green chiles

July 29, 9:03 PMAustin Healthy Food ExaminerPolly Jackson

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Roasting fresh green chiles

Hatch green chiles will soon be arriving in Austin at our local grocery stores.  If you ever wondered how to go about roasting your own, here's the secret.

Decide is you prefer mild or hot green chiles.

Pick them by hand because you want them to be straight and crisp.  If they are curled or twisted too much it becomes difficult to roast them.  A good amount is about 5lbs.  The roasted green chiles can later be frozen.

To roast:

Place the straight chiles on a cookie sheet under the broiler.  Stay with them while they roast so they don't burn.  They will pop and spew and when you can smell the delicious aroma, and they are sufficiently browned or just barely blackened, they will be ready to turn over to broil on the other side.  

Take them out of the oven and immediately put them in a wet (not dripping) dishcloth and wrap so they steam themselves.  Usually only one or two are ready/roasted at a time so plan on devoting a little time to do this.  Leave the dishcloth in the sink so you can add roasted chiles to it as they are done.

When the chiles have cooled off in the towel, place the chiles (usually 10 chiles per dish) in plastic bags in the freezer. Leave the skins on the chiles.

After thawing the chiles, pull the outer skins off like a sock; pull on the tops of the chiles to release the seed pod and pull it out.  The more seeds you leave in/on the chile, the hotter it will be. You are ready to cook.

The value of roasting your own green chiles is that you can keep from burning so much of the meat of the chile that sometimes occurs when the grocery stores do it for you in the big roasters.