Red Chile Turkey Rellenos

So since we had a lot of leftover Fried Turkey from Thanksgiving I decided to make Chile Rellenos for our Sunday night meal. The inspiration for the recipe comes from a Texas chef , Grady Spears. I am not sure what he is doing now but he has been at the helm of several successful restaurants and has published four cookbooks that I know of. I had eaten at one of his restaurants in Fort Worth many years ago and although we sat in the bar for dinner the food was just amazing. That certain restaurant, Reata, has since closed due to tornado damage to the building and has reopened in the downtown district. Grady is no longer affiliated with the Reata brand but his style of cooking still lives on at the current restaurant. My wife and I ate there for my birthday there in 2003 and it did not fail to impress. In fact on that night, Dallas/Fort Worth was under a tornado watch but I still convinced her to drive the 30 miles to eat there.

Okay so I use Grady’s recipe for a basic red sauce which starts off by making a red chile paste. I cannot seem to locate the exact recipe but it consists of the following :

4 new mexican red chiles

4 ancho chiles

3-4 cloves of garlic ( roughly chopped)

chopped onions (which I omit since my wife is deathly allergic)

Chicken stock to cover

Seed and chop the chiles and cover with the chicken stock and garlic.

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the chile mixture and place in a blender. Add just enough cooking liquid to form a paste.

At this point I add salt and pepper and a good bit of honey to tame the heat.

Red Chile Sauce

INGREDIENTS
2 cups Red Chile Paste
1 cup diced tomato
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon honey
Kosher salt to taste
2 tablespoons oil
DIRECTIONS
Place the chile paste, tomato, cumin and honey in a blender and puree until smooth.
Adjust seasonings with salt.
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-heat high heat.
Pour in the puree and cook it for 3 minutes, until the flavors are well combined.

This sauce is very versatile and I always tend to make more than I need and freeze it for future use.

I use Chef Spears cuisine as a basis for many of my "Tex Mex" dishes. Tonight I decided to use his Chicken Chile Rellenos with Cow Camp creamed Corn recipe as the basis for our meal. Of course I substituted our leftover turkey for the chicken. I also opted to forgo the Cow Camp creamed corn and used a corn sauce instead. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to do but it does not always turn out the way I thought it would, this one did. I do not always like the texture of corn in my dishes especially when it starts getting cold (the corn that is). For this sauce I sauteed corn kernels (off the cob) with bits of dried ancho chilis and garlic in a little bit of olive oil. Once caramelized I added chicken stock and pureed the sauce then strained it and added it back to the saute pan. I added about 2 tablespoons of butter to give it a bit of richness. I finished the sauce by using an immersion blender to "foam" up the sauce.

Go here to buy Grady’s cookbooks, you will not be disappointed.