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Green chile stew
The bowl that marks chile season turning into winter. Roasted green chile goes in by the cupful with cubed pork or beef and potatoes, and the chile does most of the seasoning, so the broth stays thin and sharp rather than thick and floury. It is the green answer to the state question, served in a bowl.
Order it with a warm flour tortilla for the bottom of the bowl. Cooks should start with roasted New Mexico green chile, fresh in late summer or frozen the rest of the year; a stew made with bell peppers or canned mild green chiles tastes like a different dish.
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Adobada
New Mexican carne adovada
Pork marinated in red chile with garlic and oregano, then baked slowly until it falls apart in a sauce the color of brick. This is red chile at full strength: deep, earthy and only as hot as the pods that made it. Before refrigeration, cooks preserved the pork by fermenting it in red chile in a crock.
Restaurants serve it as a plate with a tortilla and beans or home fries. Cooks need dried New Mexico red chile pods or pure ground New Mexico red chile, not a blended chili powder with cumin and salt already in it.
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Pozole
New Mexican red chile posole
Hominy and pork simmered into a stew and combined with chile, most often red, though green turns up too. In New Mexico it belongs to the holidays: posole is one of the state's most important Christmas traditions, and it is almost always served at feast days in the pueblos.
It works as a full bowl or as a side next to enchiladas. Cooks should look for dried New Mexico red chile pods to make the sauce; the pork and hominy are only as good as the chile around them.
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Enchilada
New Mexican stacked blue corn enchiladas
New Mexico often stacks its enchiladas flat instead of rolling them: corn tortillas layered with filling, covered in red or green chile and, if you like, crowned with a fried egg. Blue corn tortillas are a common choice for the stack, with a nutty flavor and a sturdier bite that stands up to the sauce.
This is the dish to order Christmas-style, red on one half and green on the other, so you can taste both chiles side by side. Say yes to the egg; the runny yolk becomes a second sauce.
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Chile relleno
New Mexican chiles rellenos
Whole roasted green chiles stuffed with cheese, dipped in egg batter and fried, then usually smothered in more chile. The New Mexico version uses the long New Mexico pod rather than the poblano found in other kitchens, and that pod's bright, grassy heat is the reason to order it here.
Heat depends on the variety, so one plate can be gentle and the next fierce. Cooks who want a predictable dinner should buy roasted chile labeled mild, medium or hot, and keep the pods whole when peeling so they hold the cheese.
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Green chile cheeseburger
The state's roadside classic: a beef patty, melted cheese and a heap of chopped roasted green chile, which turns an ordinary burger into something worth a long drive. The tradition is usually traced to the 1940s and two rivals across the road from each other in tiny San Antonio, New Mexico, the Owl Bar & Café and the Buckhorn Tavern, which opened within weeks of each other.
The state's Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail maps the stops worth a detour, from old bars to drive-ins. Ask for the chile hot if you want it to stand up to the beef.
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Breakfast burrito
New Mexican smothered breakfast burrito
Scrambled eggs, potatoes and cheese, often with bacon or sausage, rolled in a flour tortilla and either eaten in hand with chile inside or smothered on a plate under red, green or both. Santa Fe claims it: Tia Sophia's is credited with putting it on a menu in the mid-1970s, though accounts of who served the first one differ.
The same diner is where a waitress coined "Christmas" for ordering red and green together, which makes a smothered burrito there the natural place to try it.
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Huevos rancheros
New Mexican huevos rancheros
Eggs, usually fried, on corn tortillas under red or green chile and shredded cheddar, often with potatoes or pinto beans alongside. The chile is the whole sauce, so this simple plate depends entirely on how good the kitchen's red and green are.
That makes it the cleanest way to judge a diner's chile at breakfast: order it Christmas and compare the two before committing to anything bigger.
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Tamale
New Mexican red chile pork tamales
The standard New Mexico tamal is shredded pork cooked in red chile sauce, wrapped in masa that is often blended with red chile powder too, then steamed in a corn husk. The result tastes as much of chile as of corn, which is the point.
Order them smothered in more red chile at a restaurant, or buy a dozen from a local maker and steam them at home. They reheat better than almost anything else on this list.
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Sopaipilla
New Mexican sopaipillas, plain or stuffed
Puffed pillows of fried dough that serve as the standard table bread in New Mexican restaurants, with a squeeze bottle of honey or honey butter beside them. Tear off a corner, let the steam out and pour the honey inside; it is the best answer to a chile that bit harder than expected.
Stuffed sopaipillas turn the bread into dinner: a large one split and filled, then covered in melted cheddar and red or green chile. Honey became the standard partner around the 1930s; before that, jelly or jam was more common.
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Calabacitas
The summer side dish: squash, onion and corn sautéed with roasted green chile, sometimes finished with cheese. In high summer New Mexicans eat it by the bowlful, and the chile can be mild or hot depending on what is in the freezer.
It is gentle enough for anyone at the table and shows that green chile is a flavor, not just heat. For vegetarians it is the dish to look for on a New Mexican menu, and for cooks it is the easiest way to use up a bag of roasted chile.
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Frito pie
New Mexican Frito pie with red chile
Red chile ladled over corn chips, often straight into the split bag, then topped with cheese and onion. Texas and Santa Fe both claim it: Frito-Lay's records point to Texas, while Santa Fe credits Teresa Hernandez at the old Woolworth's lunch counter in the 1960s.
Whatever its birthplace, the New Mexican version is defined by red chile rather than a Texas-style chili con carne. It is fast, cheap and messy, the right lunch for a walk around downtown Santa Fe.
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