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Chiles en Nogada: Fit for a King
The Mexican Dish You Won’t See in Most US “Mexican” Restaurants
Every August, my Mexican sister-in-law and family took on their painstaking yearly tradition, making chiles en nogada to celebrate the birthdays of my brother-in-law and his youngest daughter. This complicated dish, typical of the state of Puebla, originally was a dessert created in colonial times, and eventually became a meal in itself, combining sweet and savory with the addition of shredded meat. Ingredients such as pomegranate seeds, chiles poblanos, walnuts, pears, and apples are in season from July through September, joining their flavors with others to produce this mouth-watering specialty.
At the home of my relatives, a day or two ahead of time, family members would begin to crack fresh walnuts, soak them, and peel off the thin skins covering the brain-like inner flesh. Fingers and nails soon bore the telltale signs of their task, a brownish-black stain that can take days to disappear. This step is considered necessary to remove the infamous bitter taste of the skins and leaves the walnuts looking perfectly pearly white.
