Pancakes & Peppers

14th February. Valentine van Chillies Rellenos; salty pancakes. Near Loreto.

A classic Mexican dish, traditionally done by roasting the pepper (poblano or annaheim), then removing the skin, slicing it open, cleaning it out and stuffing with asadero cheese, maybe with meat of some description, then wrapped up and dipped in a light batter- it would seem with egg whites whisked separately and then into the yolks and flour, before frying. I went for a simpler version for a first attempt- roasted the peppers, left the skin on, pulled out the insides and stuffed with my veggie bean chilli and the asadero cheese. Good result, actually. Trouble with these peppers is they can get a bit hot towards the tip, so maybe using normal peppers would be better for Jen, at least. Pretty tasty first go. A simple, fairly light dinner. If doing traditionally, a tomato sauce/stew would be on top, but not the right thing for this, given the tomato based chilli inside. Expect this will be a regular in the van. Thinking I can prepare them in advance, maybe a batch, then just roast them to order, only taking 10 minutes. Maybe they'd even freeze.

Jen also did some cooking with a return to her favoured pancakes. New vehicle, new tools, and a new recipe that turned out to be way too salty, resulting in eating them with ketchup to make it a savoury snack. I was happy enough. Jen less so.Read more