Green Chile Stew

NOTE ONE:

This recipe feeds an army. I don't even know how many servings we got out of the last one. Don't make it unless you have a gi-normous stew pot.

NOTE TWO:

This recipe is highly dependant on good green chile (no, canned Old El Paso green chile is NOT good green chile). Fresh, roasted chiles are best, but if you can find some frozen (usually this comes in plastic tubs), that's not too bad, either. I highly recommend New Mexican green chiles, although if you must use Californian, you can probably get away with it. SUBNOTE: It can be very difficult to get good green chile where you live. If so, I'm sorry. You can either make do with crap chile or move someplace better.

NOTE THREE:

I can't say this enough: Know the nature of the beast. This should be said of any dish made with green chile, as the heat and flavor of green chile is highly variable. Know what you're dealing with before you make this giant vat of stew and find out that no one can handle it. Last time I made this stuff, my mother, wife and sister all declared it inedible, and my father and I ended up splitting it. I think we each lived on it for a week.

NOTE FOUR:

No one in my family has ever written this recipe down formally. There are a few staple ingredients, and after that, we usually make do with what we have. Quantities for the veggies here are therefore approximate. I've tried not to leave you with amounts like "some o' this, a little o' that..." Really, the only things you NEED to make this are chicken or beef, green chile, water, salt, and pepper, but let's have some fun, eh?

That said, let's stew!

INGREDIENTS:

• One whole chicken, baked and cut up OR a large package of stew meat (beef parts)
• Two medium onions, chopped
• Five medium potatoes
• One packet of dry italian seasoning
• 1 c. white wine
• Green Chile (I'm not going to give you an amount, because I don't want to be responsible for your inability to handle the HOT. Add it until it tastes the way you want it to), skinned and chopped. I think I use something like 2-3 cups of chopped chiles.
• ~1/3 c. ketchup
• 4-6 c. broth or water
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• ~3 heads of broccoli (often they come bundled this way)
• ~10 oz. mushrooms (or whatever size of package you can get)
• anything else you really think goes well. We've done this with some other things, including carrots, corn, and pasole, and also without a couple of things. It's flexible. So be flexible, too!

DIRECTIONS:

Put everything except the brocolli and the mushrooms in a pot vat and cook at somewhere between simmerring and roiling, until the potatoes are just starting to get soft (or about 30 minutes), stirring occasionally and tasting for tastiness. Add the brocolli. Cook ten more minutes. Add the mushrooms. Cook about ten more minutes. If at any time you need to add more water, do so. That should be it. It's easy to make, simply time-consuming.

Enjoy!

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NOTE: I have been informed (I can't remember by whom, thank you, whoever you are) that it may be adviseable to add the green chile in at the end, as boiling chile makes it hotter. This sounds like a good idea. Another alternative is to boil everything until the potatoes get softish, then reduce the heat a lot and let it barely simmer for a long time with the chiles in. This allows the beautiful chile flavor to seep into all the other stuff without dissolving your tonsils when you eat it.

This is a simple recipe that's been passed down for countless generations in my native New Mexican family. It's also the best food for flus and colds EVER, due to the natural antibotic effects of garlic and the vitamin C in green chile, not to mention the sinus-clearing effect. Best eaten with a hot stack of home-made flour tortillas.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups green chile, chopped
• 5 good-sized potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1/2 lb pork steak, cubed
• 1/4 lb bacon, chopped
• 4-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4-1/2 tsp Mexican oregano (add more if your chile is hotter, less if it's mild)

Reserve 2 potatoes. Combine all remaining ingredients in a large pot, add about 2 quarts water. Boil on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add water if it boils down too much. Boil for about 2 hours, at which point the potatoes should have more or less dissolved. If they're not dissolving, you probably didn't chop them small enough. Fry the remaining potatoes, then add to pot, continue to cook until they're soft enough. Add salt to taste.

Note: as nocodeforparanoia notes, the quality of green chile you can obtain is very important. The best chile in the world comes from Chimayo, New Mexico. Not Hatch. Just trust me on this one.

Stuffy nose? Feeling like you have a touch of the flu starting to creep up on you? This chile recipe will help you fight off that winter bug and taste great at the same time.

Stuffs:

• Two quarts of chicken broth
• Four large potatoes, peeled and diced
• Four tablespoons of olive oil
• Two cloves worth of minced garlic
• Two pounds of pork or ham, diced
• Two each of green, yellow, and red peppers, seeds removed and sliced into strips
• Three large onions, diced
• Four large stalks of celery
• 2 tsp chile powder
• 2 tbsp chipotle
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 1 tbsp fresh oregano
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 large can of sweet corn, drained
• 2 large cans of stewed tomatoes
• 2 cans of pinto beans
• 2 cans of red kidney beans
• 1 can of black beans
• Fire roasted chiles, to taste. The more the merrier (and nasal cavity unclogging capability.) Chopped and de-seeded.

Do-Its:

1. Set up your gigantic crock pot, Instant pot, or vat on medium heat or saute mode.
2. Add olive oil and garlic to a pan (if using a crock pot) or toss into the Instant pot/vat.
3. Cook for two minutes and toss in the pork, brown alll sides.
4. Add potatoes and broth, cook until they're soft but not falling into pieces.
5. Dump everything else except fire roasted chiles into the pot.
6. Cook for 20 minutes on medium.
7. Add in chiles and cook until the heat level is to your satisfaction, minimum 20 minutes. The longer you cook the chiles the hotter the stew becomes. 
8. Stir occasionally but gently.

I normally double the garlic and onions, but I'm Italian and I don't want the ghost of my great-grandmother to show up and berate me. Enjoy!

Lots of Iron in there.