chile poblano soup

Con ajo asado!

Actually, there are Anaheim chiles as well as poblanos. 

You want to hear something? I'm bad. I made a mistake at the self-checkout scanner at the grocery store. I misidentified the chile types and charged myself for two piles of Anaheim chiles instead of one pile of each. Anaheim chiles are cheaper than poblano chiles by a dollar a pound or something. See? That's what they get for cutting corners by making spazzes such as myself be our own checker outer. 

ARTS !

Roasted until burnt all over. You can char these however you see fit. If it were legal for me to have an open flame grill then I'd go all Medieval on them and put them directly into the coals. Another option is stovetop directly on a gas flame or on an electric burner. Still another option is in a cast-iron pan. In any case, make them black and blistered. Then let them all sweat it out in a paper bag or a covered bowl, or roll them up in a clean kitchen towel. Then pick off as much of the charred skin as possible, and pull off the stem and the seed cluster. Flick it around or scrape it to remove loose seeds.

Ta-daaa. Init purdy? Yummy too. 

The super-duper high-powered immersion blender is employed to good effect here. It processed these clumpy piles in liquid handily, much more effectively than an actual processor. The resulting thick liquid is forced through a strainer to pick out any errant seeds and solid bits of debris like garlic paper. If I had a food mill, I'd use it here, but alas, for I am food mill-less. 

This soup is delicious with the customary especias mexicanas, coriander powder and cumin. I neglected to mention an odd piece of sweet onion forlornly chilling in the refrigerator was quartered and included in the simmering sauce. The remainder of the soup can be easily altered with Mexican cheese or masa harina. I am interested in seeing how I can change it. Who knows, maybe I can even improve it. 

If you might be interested in something unrelated to food wot I made then ate, the pop-up card intended for San Francisco was completed and mailed right on time, hopefully with a day to spare. The page describing the final card can be viewed here.