Poblanos Stuffed With Cheddar Cheese And Chicken

I had been wanting to cook something southwestern that was not overly fattening so when Debbie published the recipe for Stuffed Poblanos with Cheddar &Chicken on her A Feast For The Eyes blog, it quickly got my attention as we had some poblanos ready to pick.  I saved the link but when I returned to her post, it wouldn’t bring up the recipe card so I went to the Fine Cooking recipe as it was Debbie’s starting point.  Check out Debbie's blog for some great how to shots.

I only had two large and one smaller poblano so I also picked a sweet pepper.

Poblanos Stuffed With Cheddar Cheese And Chicken – slightly adapted from Fine Cooking

Ingredients:

4 large poblano chiles

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1/2 medium white onion, chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

1 tsp. dried oregano, crumbled

1 tsp. ground cumin

Generous pinch ground cinnamon

Kosher salt

1 Tbs. olive oil

2 cups shredded cooked chicken (Larry used boneless thighs)

1-1/2 cups cooked white rice

2 cups grated extra-sharp white Cheddar

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 Tbs. lime juice

Preparation:

1. Sprinkle the chicken with Adobo Seasoning and grill to an internal temp of 165F and shred when cool enough to handle (I did this the previous day)

2. Put a small slit in the chiles to allow steam to escape and grill on high until skin is blackened on all sides or do it under a broiler.  Add to a plastic bag for 10 minutes then cool, peel off the skin, slit the pepper, and remove the seed pod, membranes and loose seeds.  3. Larry nuked the sweet pepper for a few minutes to get is as soft as the poblanos then halved, and removed the seeds for stuffing.

4. Purée the tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, cumin, cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp. salt in a food processor.

5. Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the purée and cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid has evaporated and the mixture looks thick and pulpy, 8 to 11 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the chicken and rice, and then 1 cup of the cheese, the cilantro, and the lime juice. (leave the heat on if the rice and chicken are cold). Season to taste with salt.

6. Divide the filling among the peppers, wrapping the sides of the peppers up and around the filling, some of which will still be exposed.

7. Broil the peppers until the cheese is melting and the top is beginning to brown, about 4 minutes. Top with the remaining 1 cup cheese and broil until the cheese is completely melted, about 2 minutes.  Since my filling was only warm after stuffing the peppers, Larry completely assembled and baked them at 300F for about 15 minutes.

For eating, I started with the smaller poblano and a sweet pepper half and Bev stated with a larger poblano but after one bite she wanted my sweet one so we traded.  As it turned out, the stuffing was very good and will be used again, but our poblanos were much hotter than the usual ones.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/18/19 event date