Fire Roasting Hatch Chiles on a Weber Grill

Last week you might remember my recipe post on Melissa's hatch chile chili. There was a step in the process where I talked about roasting the chiles to remove the skin. Well, on a small scale of peppers (like 3 or 4), roasting them under the broiler in the oven is probably the best way to go. When you have an entire case of chiles, then roasting these babies on the grill is the only way to go!

If you want to give your peppers a quick rinse feel free, but quite honestly once these go on the grill it will take care of any dirt. At this point you want a large paper bag to put the chiles in once they are charred. 

Place them directly onto a hot grate on the grill until they begin to blister.

Once they are blistered all over place them in the paper bag, rolling the bag down to help steam while they cool. Repeat this process until all of your peppers are done.

I recommend using rubber gloves for the peeling process especially if you are roasting hot peppers. Even if you bought mild peppers you never know when a hot one got mixed up in the batch. Sticking your finger in your eye with hot pepper on your fingers is not a fun recreational activity at this point in the game. You basically pinch the blistered skin and it peels right off. I usually pinch to break the top of the pepper and discard as that is where most of the seeds are.

Scraping the pepper with the back of a knife will also achieve the same results.

I like to have a bowl on hand filled with water. Once you have the skin off toss them in the bowl until you are finished with the rest of the chiles.

Once inside you can rinse the chiles in the sink to remove any access skin or seeds. Package 6-8 chiles in individual freezer bags and then place the lot in one large freezer bag. Freeze and you can pull out appropriate portions as needed for recipes throughout the winter.

This not only works with hatch chiles but any type of pepper that you want to roast and remove the skin from. Quite honestly this is an easier and less expensive way to get roasted red peppers — use the same process above then marinate the peppers in olive oil for future use.

E.A.T. local E.A.T. well