Chile Roasting Season in Corrales, NM

Sunday was the first day of Fall.  It's also the day we went to Wagner's Farm Market in Corrales to get our roasted green chiles.  For most New Mexicans this is a rite of the season change.  Green chiles are ripe and picked in August and September and are available until late October or early November.

Even though we got there at 9:00 AM when they open, there were already 6 cars waiting to get in before us.  Another half dozen drove in right after we did.

Red chiles are chiles that have been left on the vine until they turn from green to red.  They're hung on strings in groups of red chiles called a ristra (Spanish for 'bunch').  If you see one or two ristras hanging on a porch they're there for decoration.  When you see a large number of ristras on a porch they're there to dry.  Once dried, the pods are ground up and used for red sauce to put over rellenos, tamales, enchiladas - actually almost anything.  Red chile sauce has a deep, smoky flavor.

Besides chiles, Wagner's grows and sells corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, field peas, onions, peaches and pears.

This time of year, however, the green chiles are the main attraction.  You go into the market and select your green chiles.  You can get mild, medium, hot or super hot.  We get medium which have a definite amount of heat - I can't imagine how hot super hot chiles are.  You can buy them by the pound, a bushel or a 40-lb bag.  This year we got a bushel of medium hot chiles.  We've gotten bags in the past, but we still have some frozen green chiles left over from last year so we didn't need as much.

Once you buy them, they give you a ticket and you take your chiles out to the roasting area.  We were 5th in line to have our chiles roasted.

Our bushel of green chiles is in the right-hand bin in the picture below.

Pictures are somewhat limited as they don't give you a feel for the sounds and smells of green chiles roasting.  The video below will give you the sounds, but unfortunately there is no way to convey the great smell of roasting green chiles.

As the video shows, you receive your roasted green chiles in a double plastic bag.  Once home, we leave the bag in the garage for the remainder of the day for the green chiles to continue to steam as they cool.

The next, and biggest, job is taking the skins off the chiles.  Roasting makes the skins easier to remove. Betty then slices each chile and removes the seeds.  Some chiles are frozen whole and are used for fried chiles, green chile cheeseburgers, etc.  Others are cut up and used for green chile sauce, added to scrambled eggs, used for chile cheese toast, added to green chile mango enchiladas, etc.

Betty wears gloves because the oils and seeds can burn the skin.  The worst thing you can do is rub your eye and get the oils into your eye.  Best to wear gloves.

The final step, and most enjoyable, is eating them!  Yum!