Chilis rellenos, or stuffed chilis, have been on my to try list for a while and when I came across some poblano peppers at the market this weekend I knew that it was finally time to make them. Common stuffings for chiles rellenos include cheese and picadillo and although a simple melted cheese filling sounded good I was more in the mood for a picadillo filling. Picadillo is a dish consisting of a ground meat with a tomato sauce, raisins, olives and almonds that has an amazing blend of sweet and savoury that I figured would go really well in the stuffed chiles. In addition to using the tomato sauce in the picadillo, chiles rellenos are often served in a tomato sauce and with this in mind I went with a pretty simple ranchero sauce that could be used in both places. Although it is not required, chiles rellenos are commonly dipped in an egg based batter and fried until nice and golden brown and crispy. At this point the chiles rellenos were pretty much done but I was still thinking about that melted cheesy filling that I had passed up on and I thought, why not cover them in melted cheese? I quickly pulled out a baking dish, threw in the chiles rellenos, covered them with the remaining ranchero sauce and cheese and baked them until the cheese had melted.
The chiles rellenos turned out amazingly well! The combination of the sweet and savoury picadillo filling along with the mildly hot and smoky roasted poblano peppers and the melted cheese and ranchero sauce was out of this world! This was my first time using an egg based batter and I was quite impressed by the light, airy and crispy texture that it produces. Although the chiles rellenos took a bit of effort to make they were so worth it in the end and I will definitely be making these again!
Tip: These chiles rellenos are rather labour intensive but you can make the tomato sauce and the picadillo filling the day before and greatly cut down on the amount of time and effort required on the day that you make them.
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