Instructions: The classic Mexican-restaurant chile relleno uses whats called a Long Green Chile, of a number of cultivars. Easiest to come by is the Ortega brand of canned green chiles, which are known as the Anaheim chile when fresh. Theyre almost completely fire-free but very flavorful, especially the ones we picked last night for chile verde (recipe later, this ones a winner). You can stuff any pepper you like; Ive stuffed habaneros, poblanos, Fresnos, Hungarian hot wax peppers, Spanish Spice, etc. Theyre all good, but the one that is most often used in restaurants is the Anaheim, mainly due to Col. Ortegas trek in 1906 from New Mexico to Oxnard, California, and later to Anaheim, where he developed a technique for roasting and peeling chiles mechanically.

If youre using fresh chiles, thats the trick: roasting and peeling. Batter wont stick to the shiny outer skin of fresh peppers, so you have to remove it. Besides, the taste changes drastically when you fire-roast a pepper, and its worth doing at least once - except youll probably get hooked. (I covered roasting peppers not long ago, but basically, you hold them in an open fire till they turn black, then let them cool and peel off the black skin. The flesh of the peppers stays green, or red, or orange, and takes on a smoky flavor.)

Once roasted, make a slit about 1/3 to 1/2 the length of the pepper, just below the calyx (the base of the flower around the stem). CUt out the core and seeds. Stuff the chiles with cheese - the classic is to use Monterey jack, but Ive become addicted to the salty-sour taste of feta or goat cheese (and goat cheese is more likely what the Indians of New Mexico would have used anyway, it turns out).

For the Mexican restaurant flavor, beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then fold in beaten yolks with a little salt. Dip the stuffed peppers in this batter and then fry immediately in hot oil, removing to drain on paper towels when the coating turns golden brown.

What Ive come to like, however, is dipping the peppers in beaten egg, then in corn meal, then in egg and in corn meal again. Then deep-fry them and drain when golden. This gives a crispier crust with a great corn-meal snap to it; blue corn meal gives it a deeper flavor and looks really cool besides.

In a restaurant, theyll serve these with a basic salsa ranchera, which I dont like well enough to know how to make it. I usually serve the ones I describe with sour cream and a fresh pico de gallo

(chopped tomatoes, fresh chiles, onions, cilantro, cumin, salt, and lime juice). They would be Homeric with a green chile-tomatillo sauce.

Ive also stuffed them with cheese, topped them with a grated cheese and popped them under the broiler for a low-fat/low-mess variation.

In some ways I prefer that: theres more roasted-chile flavor than there is with the battered-and-fried variety, but you do miss the nifty crunch and the corn-meal flavor.

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