Sweet and Spicy

Mexican food is so rich in flavors and textures. One of my favorite specialties is called Chiles en Nogada. It can only be found in Mexico and in Mexican restaurants around this time of the year. The reason that this meal is in hiding the rest of the year is due to its ingredients. They aren’t the most exotic ingredients but in keeping with seasonal produce, they only appear in and around September.

The first component is the walnut but it’s not any old walnut. It’s a special one that needs to be peeled to reveal only the pulp. The skin of this special walnut tends to be bitter and that would take away from the complexity of the chiles. This walnut is used with condensed milk or some other kind of cooling dairy agent (cream, sour cream etc) to create a sweet sauce to go over the chiles.

The main portion of the meal comes from the poblano pepper – itself a hearty smoked pepper with a slight bitterness – stuffed with various items. The stuffing can be made of ground beef or pork mixed with raisins and spices and nuts. Sometimes the walnut makes its appearance in the stuffing itself. Other times one finds almonds among the mix. The stuffing is often spicy with various other chilis adding their heat to the dish.

When you cut through the sauce and into the pepper and taste the entrée, your mouth feels first a cool sweetness accompanied by a spicy, crunchy, crumbly mixture. The sensation it leaves in your mouth is incredible. Varying from sweet to heat is intense enough on its own. Then to have the liquid sauce melt over the brittle members of the stuffing feels like a firework exploding in your mouth.

I love to eat. When a dish is full of complexity such as Chiles en Nogada, it makes me happy to be alive and to be able to keep tasting such true gastronomic miracles.