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Chiles en Nogada

Puebla

🇲🇽 Mexico Mains hard 1 hr prep · 45 min cook serves 6 1 hr 45 min start to table ~690 kcal per serving surprise

Take a roasted chile, stuff it with meat cooked with peaches and raisins, then pour cool sweetened walnut cream over the whole thing and scatter fruit on top. This is Mexico's most patriotic dish, not a dare.

The picadillo already plays both sides, pork fat against apple, pear, and peach, with cinnamon and clove tying them together. The nogada is more rich and tannic than sugary, closer to a nut butter thinned with cream, and the pomegranate seeds land small hits of acid so the richness never stalls. The poblano brings mild heat and a roasted edge that keeps everything savory.

🌶️🥜
The story

Legend places the first chiles en nogada in Puebla in August 1821, in the kitchen of the Augustinian nuns of the Santa Mónica convent, cooked for Agustín de Iturbide as he passed through after sealing Mexican independence. Green chile, white walnut sauce, red pomegranate: the plate is the flag. Whatever the truth of the story, Puebla has treated the dish as its own ever since.

It remains strictly seasonal. Fresh walnuts, pomegranates, and the peaches the filling wants all peak from late July through September, so restaurants across Puebla and Mexico City serve chiles en nogada as an event in the run-up to Independence Day on September 16. Families argue over one detail above all: whether the chile should be fried in egg batter (capeado) or left naked under the sauce.

Fair warning: The nogada is served cool over a warm chile and it is genuinely sweet, so diners expecting a savory stuffed pepper are sometimes thrown by both the temperature and the sugar.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 6 large poblano chileswide, flat, unblemished ones are easiest to stuff
  • 2 tbsp neutral or olive oil
  • 1/2 white onion, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 500 g (about 1 lb) ground porkor half pork, half beef
  • 1 large ripe tomato, finely choppedor 180 ml (3/4 cup) tomato puree
  • 1 each apple, pear, and peach, peeled and diced smallslightly underripe fruit holds its shape
  • 50 g (1/3 cup) raisins
  • 30 g (1/4 cup) slivered blanched almonds
  • 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, plus a pinch of ground clovefor the filling
  • 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
  • 120 g (about 1 cup) walnut halvesthe fresher the better; soak and peel for the whitest sauce
  • 100 g (3.5 oz) fresh goat cheese or queso frescosome cooks use half cream cheese
  • 180 ml (3/4 cup) Mexican cremacreme fraiche works
  • 60 to 120 ml (1/4 to 1/2 cup) milkto thin the sauce
  • 2 tsp sugarplus a splash of dry sherry if you like
  • 1 pomegranate, seeds onlyfor garnish
  • small handful flat-leaf parsley leavesfor garnish

Method

  1. Char the poblanos directly over a gas flame or under a hot broiler, turning until the skin blisters and blackens all over.
  2. Seal them in a covered bowl for 10 minutes, then rub off the skins, cut a slit down one side of each, and pull out seeds and veins without tearing the flesh or losing the stem.
  3. Cover the walnuts with very hot water or milk and soak at least 20 minutes (overnight is better), then peel away as much of the papery brown skin as your patience allows.
  4. Heat the oil in a wide skillet, soften the onion and garlic, then add the meat and cook, breaking it up, until no longer pink.
  5. Stir in the tomato, cinnamon, clove, and salt and cook until the mixture looks nearly dry.
  6. Add the diced fruit, raisins, and almonds and simmer 8 to 10 minutes more, until the fruit is tender but still holds its shape; taste for salt and let cool slightly.
  7. Blend the drained walnuts with the cheese, crema, sugar, and enough milk to reach a thick, pourable cream, then season with a small pinch of salt and keep at cool room temperature.
  8. Fill each chile generously with picadillo and fold the slit closed around it.
  9. If you want the chiles warm, cover and heat them gently in a low oven; the sauce itself is never heated.
  10. Set each chile seam side down on a plate and spoon over enough nogada to coat it, leaving the stem showing.
  11. Scatter pomegranate seeds and parsley over the white sauce.
  12. Serve right away, traditionally at room temperature, with nothing heavier than rice or bread alongside.
Shopping notes
Poblanos, Mexican crema, and queso fresco are at any Latin American grocery, and most large supermarkets now stock poblanos. Fresh in-shell walnuts in late summer make a whiter, milder sauce, but regular shelled walnuts soaked in milk are fine. Creme fraiche substitutes for crema, and half goat cheese, half cream cheese covers the cheese.
Cross-checked against: isabeleats.com · muybuenoblog.com · mexicoinmykitchen.com
Kitchen notes

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