Heat & Knives

The Recipe

Source: Rosa’s New Mexican Table by Roberto Santibanez

Make the Ranchera Sauce:

3 pounds ripe tomatoes, roasted, peeled, and cored
2 serrano chiles
2 large garlic cloves
a 2-inch piece of Mexican cinnamon stick
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 small white onion, finely chopped (about 1 1/3 cups)
1 ½ teaspoons salt, or as needed
1 teaspoon sugar, or as needed

Working in batches if necessary, combine the tomatoes, chiles, and garlic in a blender and blend until smooth. Center the cinnamon stick on a 6-inch square of cheesecloth and tie the corners of the square together to make a neat bundle. (Mexican cinnamon will fall apart during cooking and the pieces can be difficult to remove from the finished dish. Wrapping the cinnamon in cheesecloth makes it easy to remove it all after cooking.)

Heat the vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the pureed tomato mixture and bring to a boil. Stir in the salt, sugar, and cinnamon bundle. Adjust the heat so the sauce is simmering. Cook until lightly thickened (just enough to coat a spoon), about 30 minutes. If the sauce thickens too much before that time, lower the heat slightly and add water, a tablespoon or two at a time.

Remove the sauce from the heat and check the seasonings, adding more salt and sugar if you like. The sauce can be made up to 3 days in advance. Let cool, then cover and refrigerate. Reheat over low heat, adding water 1 tablespoon at a time if necessary to return the sauce to the right consistency.

Prepare and Stuff the Poblanos:

seven 6-ounce bags (or six 7-ounce bags) baby spinach or 2 ½ pounds loose baby spinach
¼ cup mild olive oil
½ cup raisins
½ cup pine nuts
salt
2 cups Ranchera sauce [above recipe]
6 large poblano chiles (about 1 ¼ pounds), roasted and prepared for stuffing
½ cup crema, crème fraiche, or thinned sour cream
half an 11-ounce log plain goat cheese, cut into 6 slices
¼ cup coarsely chopped epazote or cilantro

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Stir in the spinach a bagful at a time (or in 6 or 7 batches) and cook just until bright green, about 1 minute. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water until cool enough to handle.

Working in batches, squeeze as much water from the spinach as possible (be very serious about the squeezing!). Coarsely chop the spinach. There will be about 2 very tightly packed cups.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach, raisins, and pine nuts and cook, stirring to break up the clumps of spinach, until the raisins are puffy, the pine nuts are starting to toast, and almost all the liquid has evaporated. Season the spinach with salt, then pour in ¾ cup water and cook until the water has evaporated. (It may seem odd to add water after taking the time to cook off the liquid, but there is a sound reason: the addition of water helps carry the salt evenly throughout the dense spinach mixture.) Remove from the heat and let cool.

Pour the sauce into an 11 by 9-inch baking dish or other baking dish that will hold the stuffed chiles snugly. Divide the filling among the chiles, filling them loosely. Put them opening side up in the baking dish. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake until heated through, about 25 minutes.

Drizzle the crema over the chiles while they are still in the baking dish, then transfer them to serving plates, spooning some of the cream-enriched sauce over and around them. (It is not necessary to blend the cream completely with the ranchera sauce; in fact, the plates will look nicer with a streaky sauce.) Top each chile with a round of goat cheese and some chopped epazote, and serve.