Green Chile Gravy

In New Mexico green chile is not a garnish, it is a sauce in its own right and it goes on almost everything. Hatch chillies are the proper thing but they do not travel, so this uses long green chillies roasted until blackened, which gets you most of the way there. It should be loose enough to flood a plate and hot enough to notice.

Ingredients

Makes about 700ml, enough for six plates

• 8 long green chillies Anaheim or Turkish sivri if you can find them, otherwise green romano peppers with 2 green bird's eye chillies for heat
• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil or lard, which is traditional
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 35g (1¼oz) plain flour
• 700ml (1¼ pints) hot chicken stock
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp dried oregano Mexican oregano if you have it
• 1 tsp cider vinegar added at the end
• salt and black pepper to taste

Kit

• Grill or gas hob
• Bowl and clingfilm
• Heavy saucepan
• Wooden spoon

Method

1. Blacken the chillies. Either lay them under a very hot grill for ten to twelve minutes, turning until the skins are charred all over, or hold them over a gas flame with tongs. You want proper black blisters, not a light toasting.

2. Drop them straight into a bowl and cover it tightly with clingfilm. Leave for fifteen minutes. The trapped steam lifts the skins away from the flesh and turns a fiddly job into an easy one.

3. Rub the skins off with your fingers, pull out the stalks and most of the seeds, and chop the flesh roughly. Do not rinse them under the tap, because you will wash away the smoky flavour you just spent twelve minutes creating.

4. Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan over a medium heat and cook the onion for seven or eight minutes until soft and just golden. Add the garlic, cumin and oregano and cook for one minute more.

5. Scatter in the flour and stir it into the oil and onion. Cook for two to three minutes until it turns a pale sandy colour. This is a light roux, not a Cajun one, so do not push it dark.

6. Add the hot stock a ladle at a time, stirring each addition smooth. Then tip in the chopped chillies with any juice that has collected in the bowl.

7. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for fifteen to twenty minutes, stirring now and then. It will thicken and the raw green flavour of the chillies will mellow into something rounder and smokier.

8. Stir in the cider vinegar off the heat, season with salt and black pepper, and taste for heat. If it is milder than you want, a chopped fresh green chilli stirred in now will lift it without cooking out.

Tips worth knowing

• Roast more chillies than you need and freeze the peeled flesh in bags. It keeps for six months and turns this into a twenty minute recipe next time.
• Never wash roasted chillies under the tap to remove the skins. Rub them off dry, or the smoke goes down the drain with them.
• The heat of green chillies varies wildly from batch to batch. Chop one and taste a sliver before you decide how many to use, rather than finding out at the table.
• This gravy should pour, not sit. If it has gone stiff, let it down with stock until it floods across a plate when you spoon it on.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps five days in the fridge and freezes brilliantly for six months. The flavour improves after a day. Reheat gently with a splash of stock, stirring, as the flour tightens up when cold.

Questions people ask