Chile Verde Sauce

This year we decided to grow Tomatillos in our garden for the first time. The plants are huge with lots of fruit on them, but with this strange summer, not a lot of the fruit has gotten very big.

Our tomatillo harvest after husking

Still with one frost warning already under our belt, we thought we'd better get as much harvested now as possible. We grew the tomatillos for basically one use, chile verde sauce. We like chile verde as a sauce for braising chicken or pork, as well as for enchiladas. It doesn't take much work other than preparing the vegetables to throw this sauce together. This recipe makes about 7 1/2 cups which we freeze in 1 1/2 cup containers to use throughout the winter.

I had to laugh while we were preparing this as our pepper selection made for quite an international chile verde. We used poblanos and japalenos, which I would consider very traditional for this dish, plus some Italian sweet peppers because they looked so fabulous. After tasting the sauce, we decided it needed a little more heat and threw in an Asian ho chi minh pepper (only one because ho chi minhs will knock your socks off).

Chile Verde Sauce

3 1/2 lbs tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 1/2 lb green peppers, seeded (make sure to mix in some hot peppers with the sweet as the sauce benefits from a little heat. The amount really depends on how hot you like things)
3/4 lb yellow onion, quartered
1 head garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
2 bunch fresh cilantro, stems removed
salt and pepper

Put the tomatillos, peppers, onions and garlic in a large roasting pan. Broil until everything is soft and starting to color.

Put the roasted vegetables into a blender or food processor with the fresh cilantro. You'll probably have to do this in batches. Purée until as smooth as possible, you are going to have tomatillo seeds, don't stress over it.

Put the puréed mixture back into the roasting pan, or another large pan, and simmer for about 30 minutes until slightly thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Makes about 7 1/2 cups.

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