Hatch Chili Chicken salad

Stopped by Hatch last year when I was in NM visiting my son and brother.  I picked up a big bright orange ristra of chilies from a roadside stand. Not sure how they got that color, but it looked cool.  Brought it back to Oregon where it promptly melted in the damp weather.

Grew some New Mexico varieties this year on the patio (part of the 38 types of chilies I grew) and they did pretty well, but nothing like you see down there.  I will back down there in May for my son's graduation at NMSU in Cruces and looking forward to checking out the school's world famous chili institute.

That sounds awesome, plf.

Im going to have to try putting that together for myself.

I have a buddy who went to New Mexico and visited some seed vault for the primo Hatch variety and he is harvesting now.  I made some Colorado Green Chile with it a few weeks back, but that chicken salad sounds great.

Nothing like the smell of fire roasting some chiles.

I love those caged tumblers you see that tosses em and torches em.

>>>>I made some Colorado Green Chile

Still makes me chuckle.

The big question around here is grapes or no grapes in the chicken salad.

No on grapes, or apples sneaking into my savory dishes.

No cranberries either. Or raisins in curried chicken salad.

dude you grow 38 types of chilis in portland?

This my local meat market's small potion of their pepper offering. Not bad for Long Island.

I was looking for Ají dulce to make Sofrito.

Some of the peppers grown in my backyard.

And there were others, and more. There will be a second harvest, these were harvested trying to beat the rain a couple of weeks ago.

>>>dude you grow 38 types of chilis in portland?

You betcha.  Although the winters are long, cold, and damp, the summers are warm and dry - especially this past one.  The Willamette Valley is ideal growing climate for many things.   I know I went a little overboard this year with my "patio of pain" and the dehydrator is working overtime.   In addition to drying them, I have been giving away tons of variety packs and have started canning pickled peppers.  Still have a shit ton out on the plants including the super hots (Trinidad Scorpion, Carolina Reaper, Ghost Peppers) which I am having a harder time giving away or finding practical uses for.  

Aren't they gorgeous!

Hot Stuff!

Judit, I know you mentioned that your friend uses those for personal consumption and to give away, but does he string them up ristra style?   That is a truck load of peppers and could fetch some serious coin at the neighborhood farmers market, especially if they are organic.

Ken, there are so many more than that, still on plants. He does string some up as ristras, but usually just for drying to crush for powder or for cooking in months to come. Yes, they are almost always organic, the occasional exception being when he uses chicken manure before planting that might have come from chickens who were fed commercial feed. He makes hot chow chow, chile verde sauce, carrot/habenero sauce, pear/fatalii sauce with pears from my yard, etc. He love farming, peppers and eating good food. He doesn't believe in exchanging weed or food he grows for money.

I roast the ones he gives me, peel, seed them and freeze them for cooking with later. I eat a lot of raw red bell-style peppers always, so the chance to mix it up with some of these raw is always a treat.

I have 7 lbs of mixed chili peppers fermenting for hot sauce. The off-gassing on that much heat is ripe!