Green Chile Sauce with Meat

This recipe is from my mother’s friend Charlene Herman. The original recipe does not have amounts for many of the ingredients, so I am updating it to include them.

Servings: 6

1 lb hamburger
1 cup onion
4 Tbsp bacon fat or olive oil
4 Tbsp flour
1 cup hot water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 cup green chile, roasted, peeled & chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
salt, to taste

1. Brown hamburger & remove from pan. Drain off fat.
2. Add bacon fat or olive oil to pan. Add onion & cook until softened.
3. Add garlic & cook just until fragrant.
4. Add flour and stir until slightly browned.
5. Add hot water, stirring constantly until well mixed.
6. Add bouillon cube & cook until dissolved.
7. Add chile. Salt to taste & simmer for 15-20 minutes.
8. Serve over pinto beans.

• My mother always had a jar of bacon fat by the stove – she saved it every time she cooked bacon for breakfast. I don’t have this available (and probably wouldn’t use this much even if I did) so I use olive oil instead. If you want the bacon flavor, I would recommend chopping & cooking a couple slices of bacon and including the bacon as well as its fat in the recipe. Add enough olive oil to make a total of 4 Tbsp so that your sauce will be the right consistency.
  

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Green Chile Sauce

This is a recipe that my mother had as long as I can remember, but I don’t know where she got it. It is very similar to the Basic Green Chile Sauce on the Focus New Mexico site. The original recipe was cooked in melted shortening, but I use olive oil for everything now, so I’m going to update the recipe.

Servings:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp flour
1 cup chopped green chile (roasted, peeled & seeded)
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes (fresh or 15 oz can)
salt to taste

1. Heat oil and saute the onion a few minutes, until softened.
2. Add garlic and cook just until fragrant.
3. Stir in the flour, cook two minutes.
4. Slowly add the stock, stirring constantly.
5. Add the chile & tomatoes. Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water or stock if sauce gets too thick.

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Arrabiata Sauce – well, kind of

While we were in Italy, I made this dish at one of the bed & breakfasts we stayed at.  The owner kindly let us cook dinner for ourselves when we got there too late to go out to dinner.

Cooking in a strange kitchen using only what they have in their cabinets and fridge can be challenging. More so when all the labels are in a foreign language. Based on what I found and the memory of an Arrabiata sauce recipe I had read before, I threw this together. It turned out quite tasty, so I wrote it down before I forgot what I put in it. This made one serving.

1 tsp olive oil (olio di oliva)
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes (pomodoro), chopped
1/2 anchovy fillet (acciughe), chopped
1 tsp fennel seed (finocchio), crushed
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (peperoncini)
1 Tbsp tomato paste (concentrato di pomodoro)
Splash red wine (vino)
1 Tbsp Italian parsley (prezzemolo), chopped
cooked pasta
Parmesan, grated

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet.
2. Add tomatoes, anchovy, fennel seed and red pepper. Cook until tomatoes are soft.
3. Add tomato paste, red wine and parsley.  Cook until slightly thickened.
4. Pour over pasta and sprinkle with Parmesan.

• Peperoncini were everywhere – fresh bunches in the produce stalls and dried in the grocery stores. I was especially intrigued by the grinders filled with whole dried red peperoncini – similar to a grinder that we use for black pepper.

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Dorian’s Marinara Sauce

recipe created by Dorian Lara especially for his Eggplant Parmesan

extra virgin olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1/4 carrot, diced
1/3 large head garlic, peeled and diced
1 – 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 – 28 can diced tomatoes
1 – 6 oz can tomato paste
dried oregano
dried basil
dried thyme
dried marjoram
dried rosemary
black pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
10 “twigs” fresh thyme, strip leaves from stems

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in large stock pot.
2. Add onion and carrot and saute until onion is just barely caramelized.
3. Reduce heat and add garlic (reserving 2 cloves). Cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Add all tomato products. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add dried herbs and pepper to taste.
6. Add fresh basil and thyme leaves (discard the stems).
7. Simmer for 1-2 hours partially covered. If it looks a little runny, remove lid and cook until thickened.
8. Before serving, add the two reserved cloves of garlic – just smash and toss them in.

• Yes, that’s 1/3 of a head of garlic, not 1/3 of a clove.
• You can use an “Italian seasoning” blend to replace the dried herbs if you prefer.
• You can make a double or triple batch and freeze the extra.

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