During our sojourn in Santa Fe last spring, we took ample advantage of green chile — even though the vegetable was out of season. Every supermarket stocked at least a few brands of frozen green chile. The peppers were invariably fire-roasted, peeled, and chopped. While frozen green chile doesn’t seem to have made it to our Boston-area markets, seeing local chiles at the farmers markets reminded us of a favorite dish we made in Santa Fe.
That would be green chile corn chowder, amped up with diced roasted chicken and simmered with potato cubes. The potato cubes are a New England thing, we suspect. But with corn, potatos, and some green chiles in the local markets, we revived the dish for the sudden chill of early fall. It’s made all the easier by roasting chicken breasts and prepping the corn ahead of time.
As an aside, we try to cook corn as soon as possible. Unless we want to enjoy corn on the cob, we trim the kernels off the cob with a sharp knife and saute them with some finely chopped onion in a little olive oil or butter. The ‶fried corn″ is ready in 2-3 minutes. This method preserves the maximum freshness of the corn flavor. It also keeps the natural sugars from turning to starch.
Since we’re often reduced to using canned green chile, we like to add a diced fresh poblano pepper to enliven the flavor and add some nicely contrasting color. For a single chile, we usually blister it with a kitchen torch and just rub off the skin.
GREEN CHILE CORN CHOWDER
Serves 4 as a main dish
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 4 medium white potatoes, diced
- 2 cups fried corn kernels
- 8 ounces chopped green chiles (canned or frozen)
- 1 fresh poblano chile, roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped
- chicken bouillon powder for 4 cups (we prefer Goya)
- 4 cups milk, divided
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 cups diced roasted chicken meat
Directions
In 5-quart or larger pot, heat olive oil. Add onion and cook until soft (about 5 minutes). Stir in diced potatoes and cook 1-2 minutes. Add corn, diced green chiles, diced poblano, and bouillon powder. Stir in 3-1/2 cups of milk and heat mixture gently until warm.
Stir remaining half cup of milk into cornstarch, stirring to thoroughly dissolve the starch. Add this mixture to the chowder pot. Raise heat on chowder and stir constantly until chowder begins to thicken.
Add diced chicken, reduce heat, and stir until chowder is piping hot.