At home, we make a pretty traditional version of green chile cooked with onion, garlic, a little ground beef, and freshly crushed cumin and coriander seed. (We also add puréed tomatillos, but that’s another story.) It’s a staple of our diet, served over rice and topped with a bit of sour cream to soothe the heat. Or we spoon the sauce over eggs and tortillas as a verdant variation of huevos rancheros. My last visit to Santa Fe proved that green chiles are much more versatile. They can star equally in both casual and fine dining.
The green chile cheeseburger, for example, has become an icon of New Mexican cuisine. The state tourism office modestly admits that it didn’t invent the hamburger sandwich. (That honor may belong to Louis’s Lunch in New Haven, Conn., louislunch.com). But, say the tourism folks, New Mexico “added green chile and made it hot.” The green chile cheeseburger is so popular that there is even a Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail with more than 50 stops. I haven’t tried them all, but I have had my share of good green chile cheeseburgers, including a memorable one at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiu.
But my new favorite is served at Luminaria Restaurant at Santa Fe’s Inn and Spa at Loretto (211 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, 505-984-7915, hotelloretto.com/eat_drink). The Loretto Green Chile Cheeseburger featured all the elements I’ve come to expect — ground beef (8 oz. in this case), green chile, and cheese (white cheddar in this case). But the addition of avocado and candied red chile bacon elevated the Loretto burger to People’s Choice winner in the 2021 Green Chile Smackdown. The bacon, needless to say, was the piece de resistance.
Green chile can also go gourmet
SkyFire restaurant at Bishop’s Lodge (1297 Bishops Lodge Road, Santa Fe, 505-390-2323. aubergeresorts.com/bishopslodge) brings contemporary flair to traditional New Mexican ingredients and cuisine. The restaurant is the dining centerpiece of the resort that opened in 2021. Only a short 4-mile drive north from the Santa Fe Plaza, it sits on a gorgeous piece of property selected by Santa Fe’s first archbishop for a chapel and residence in the 1860s.
Farolitos guide the way past adobe buildings to SkyFire. My friend Patti and I had a drink by the fireplace in the bar before going in to eat — by another fireplace in the dining room. Acclaimed Dallas chef Dean Fearing of Fearing’s Restaurant (fearingsrestaurant.com) helped devise the original menu. His creamy version of tortilla soup is such a hit that it has become a menu staple. So is the simply named Green Risotto introduced by Executive Chef Pablo Peñalosa, who worked in top kitchens in his native Mexico and in Spain before taking the reins at SkyFire. The menu description of “Hatch green chile, poblano, perfect egg, mushrooms” hardly does justice to Peñalosa’s culinary legerdemain.
That perfect egg, by the way, is cooked to 63 degrees C. When the server brought my plate to the table, he pierced the egg and stirred the golden yolk into the mushroom-topped rice. For me, the dish is the ideal gourmet comfort food. Chef Peñalosa kindly shared the recipe, which I have scaled down to four servings. That was fairly easy, since, like most professional chefs, Peñalosa uses metric measure. The recipe follows another time-honored restaurant practice: The risotto is cooked halfway and set aside to be finished when an order comes in.
SKYFIRE’S GREEN RISOTTO
GREEN CHILE PUREE
- 166g whipping cream
- 198g green chile
- 33g Parmesan cheese
- 55g chile poblano, diced
Make green chile purée: Heat whipping cream. Add green chile and Parmesan and simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat and add chile poblano. Blend, leaving flecks of the raw chile. Set aside.
RISOTTO
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 440g arborio rice (about 2 cups)
- 13g shallot, minced
- 4-5g garlic, minced
- 110ml (a skimpy half cup) white wine
- 1 liter vegetable stock, hot
Heat oil in large saucepan and stir in arborio to coat and toast. Add shallot and garlic. Cook five minutes until shallot is translucent. Add wine and cook to evaporate the alcohol. Lower the heat and begin adding stock little by little until the rice is cooked only al dente.
Spread mixture on baking sheet and let cool to room temperature.
GREEN CHILE RISOTTO
- Partially cooked risotto
- 200g of chile purée
- 1 liter hot vegetable stock
Place together in a pan and cook until risotto is done to taste and texture.
Serve with soft-cooked egg (63°F) on top. Break yolk to create a runny sauce.