Green Chile Sous Vide Style

As fall approaches I can't help but think about roasted green chilies and the best damn stew/condiment most people out side of New Mexico or Colorado know nothing about, I am talking about Green Chile. Mean Green the stew that is satisfying on its own in a bowl, or as a condiment poured on eggs, potatoes, hamburgers, pasta, rice....... Name a food I'd put Green Chile on about anything.

The best chile for making Green Chile is a Hatch Chile Pepper from Hatch, New Mexico, but it is a rare find in the Bay Area so I had to improvise using a combination of Anaheims, Jalapeno, and Pasilla peppers. Hatches have the perfect spice, the California Anaheims tend to be milder than the Hatch Pepper, so the Jalapenos brought the heat and the Pasilla give a nice color and a rich rounded pepper flavor.

To get the best flavor out of the peppers they need to be roasted, you can do it on your BBQ, under a broiler or stove top like I did.

After charring the peppers need to hit the sweat lodge. Any environment that traps the moisture of the charred peppers works, here I have used a bowl with plastic wrap, but you could use a paper bag, a pot with a lid, anything that will allow it some sauna action to loosen the skin away from the flesh of the pepper.

Remember when removing the skins you are going to get capsaicin,the stuff that makes chilies spicy, on your hands. To avoid feeling a little burn on your hands, wear food handler gloves or after peeling give your hands a quick wash in veggie oil before using soap and water, the capsaicin dissolves in fat.

Now getting to the meat of it I have to invoke the PFR law. That is Pork Fat Rules, since this ain't a vegan blog we'll talk about our butt, pork butt that is. A nice 2 pound piece of boneless pork butt was treated with a generous rub down of kosher salt (I guess not so kosher), black pepper, dried garlic and dried onion powder sat in the fridge overnight.

The pork butt and peeled peppers, seeds included, were then vacuum sealed and ready for a 12 hour hot bath, in my Sous Vide Supreme, water oven.

Set to 80 degrees Centigrade, our submerged chile pork pack is transforming itself to the most tender and delicious green chile.

After its bath you can see the juicy pork stock transformation from our over night bath that we will use for the base of our stew!

Not that it really needs it but everything is better with beer, so we added a little beer to a sock pot to bring to a boil with our pork stock.

While the beer and stock come to a boil, shred the pork and chilies. Then add the shredded pork mixture to the pork stock and lower heat and allow the shredded pork to heat up.

Once heated, enjoy in a bowl with a tortilla if you're a purist, but if you are a fanatic like me you'll add pour it on everything. Mmmmm green chile doughnuts.....