Maybe it is breathing the dusty air, or getting jabbed by cactus. Whatever the reason, when I travel to the Southwest, I crave chile peppers.
During a recent visit to the region, I ate a lot of peppers, including some nestled in a potato gratin.
Rather than the mild-mannered canned green chiles I eat back in Baltimore, out in cactus land, I went for the hotter stuff.
I am far from a Scoville daredevil. Those are the eaters who chomp down on the chile peppers that rank high on the Scoville scale. This is a measure developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912 to chart the pungency of peppers. A bell pepper, for instance, had a zero Scoville rating, a jalapeno rates between 2,500 and 10,000, and the hottest peppers, habanero and scotch bonnet, go up to 300,000 on the scale.
Really potent peppers can make you weep. Some brave souls grow them in their vegetable gardens. Few creatures bother these peppers, not even the deer. I try to follow the lead of nature. If four-legged critters won't nibble on the extra-hot chile peppers, neither will I.
My idea of being daring is to eat some poblano chiles. They score a mere 1,000 to 1,500 on the Scoville scale but pack enough wallop to light my fire.
These particular peppers were among the pile of provisions my in-laws and I hauled from my in-laws' home near Phoenix to a condo in Rocky Point, Mexico. There, my in-laws, my wife and I spent most of a week. The grocery haul was designed to save us money; we'd be cooking in rather than eating out during our vacation.
It was also designed to keep us from running into digestive-tract difficulties. My prior visit to Mexico had taught me that while the water supply there is safe, it does contain different bacteria from the water at home.
So we squeezed about 30 gallons of bottled water and boxes of provisions into the back of my brother-in-law's Toyota and headed down to Mexico.
The trip took five hours. Along the way, we saw plenty of cactuses. We saw the big saguaro and the artfully twisted organ pipe. The saguaro are interesting but, as I discovered, if you get close they are amazingly adept at pricking you.
South of Gila Bend, Ariz., traveling through the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Gunnery Range, Air Force jets swooped over us, but dropped no bombs. We rolled through one random U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint, on Arizona Route 85 in the middle of a cactus patch. At the border crossing at Lukeville and Sonoyta, the Mexican authorities waved us through.
We got lost, but not seriously lost, twice but eventually found our way to the condo, unpacked and began cooking.
We ate a lot of shrimp. Rocky Point, or Puerto Penasco in Spanish, is on the northeastern edge of the Sea of Cortez and has an active fishing fleet. Part of our ritual was to visit the various seafood shops in the town and bargain with the merchants, each one claiming that his shrimp were bigger and better than his competitors.
One night, along with the shrimp, we ate hot potatoes, my name for a potato gratin spiced with poblano chiles that had been roasted, skinned and sliced.
The heat of the chiles provided a nice counterpoint to the rich, creamy potatoes. I wasn't used to potatoes that had a little "burn" in them. I liked it.
After dinner, my brother-in-law and I sat out on a balcony overlooking the Sea of Cortez and smoked Cuban cigars. I smoke about two cigars a year. These Cuban cigars, purchased at a shop in town, were exceptionally flavorful and smooth. They were not sold in the United States. My brother-in-law considered trying to sneak a few Cuban cigars back across the border. He decided not to.
My wife wanted to bring the leftover bag of uncooked potatoes back with us. But I had read that fruit and vegetables taken from the United States into Mexico may not be allowed to re-enter. I did not want to go to the slammer on charges of potato smuggling.
So we left the potatoes in Mexico, but I came back with a taste for them mixed with poblano chiles.
rob.kasper@baltsun.com
See Rob Kasper Wednesdays on ABC2/WMAR-TV's News at Noon.
Southwestern Potato Gratin
Serves 8
4 large poblano chiles
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 1/2 pounds Yukon gold or russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/8 -inch slices
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro, plus extra for garnish
2 cups low-salt chicken broth
2 cups whipping cream
1 1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (about 6 ounces)
1/2 cup crumbed queso anejo (salty, dry, aged white cheese) or Romano cheese
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Char chiles over gas flame or in a broiler until blackened on all sides. Enclose in paper bag and let stand 10 minutes. Peel, seed and chop chiles.
Butter a 13-inch-by-9-inch-by- 2-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle garlic over bottom of dish. Arrange 1/4 of the potatoes in the dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then 1/3 of the chiles and 1/3 of the cilantro. Repeat layering of potatoes, chiles and cilantro, 2 more times, seasoning with salt and pepper. Top with any remaining potatoes. Pour broth over, then cream. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cover dish with aluminum foil. Bake until potatoes are tender, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle cheeses over the potatoes and continue baking until liquid thickens, about 15 minutes. Cool slightly. Sprinkle with cilantro.
From "The Bon Appetit Cookbook," by Barbara Fairchild
Per serving: 488 calories, 15 grams protein, 31 grams fat, 19 grams saturated fat, 39 grams carbohydrate, 3 grams fiber, 106 milligrams cholesterol, 292 milligrams sodium