Here we are with step 2 of the chiles en nogada story: the filling. If I were going super-authentic it would be a picadillo (see the recipe I posted yesterday), but I made some edits, so "filling" is plenty appropriate.
One of our dinner guests for this meal eats chicken and fish but not beef or pork, so I went with shredded chicken thighs as the meat. Braise in a couple inches of water, remove, cool, shred, chop. (And the liquid left behind is basically chicken stock, so save that for another use.)
Then I mixed the meat with an oddly eclectic assortment of ingredients: onion, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, tomatoes, a pear, an apple, cranberries, and -- hold onto your hats for this one -- dried kiwi.
(I had the kiwi on hand anyway, believe it or not, and since the original recipe called for candied cactus, I thought it was about as close as I was going to get. Hey, at least it's green.)
That's it for the filling. Stuff into the peppers, and then you're ready for the sauce.
Oh, the sauce.
We'll talk about that tomorrow.
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