A Taste of Home

A freshly made sandwich from the family owned deli, a creatively dished opus from the local celebrity chef and a mouthwatering burrito from the corner taqueria all have something in common. They can't hold water next to my grandmother's chile rellenos. By matter of simplicity, the comfort and satisfaction they bring to me just can't be compared. In this first edition of BCEE, I'd like to focus on the relleno in it's many glorious forms.

The traditional restaurant chile relleno is a chile pepper, stuffed and subsequently fried. Specifically, the traditional New Mexican relleno is a New Mexico chile pepper stuffed with queso fresco cheese and fried in a golden corn meal batter. As a result of it's ubiquity, I've witnessed it wrapped in a burrito served with horchata, stuffed with shrimp and cream cheese, served alongside sushi and even in the midwest as a jalapeno popper. My grandma's version is a New Mexico chile stuffed with ground beef and mild cheddar cheese, fried.

The three forms I intend to experiment with are the following: the Restaurant (traditional), the Abuelita (my grandma's) and the BCEE original Thai relleno.