Very Veggie Pesach 2023: Chile Relleno Casserole

I love Chile Relleno, a Mexican dish of Poblano peppers stuffed with cheese and batter fried. Poblano is a mildly spicy pepper, about halfway between the more familiar jalapeno peppers (2000 - 8000 on the Scoville scale of the "heat" of chili peppers) and plain old bell peppers (0 Scoville heat units). Poblano scores about 1000 - 2000 on the Scoville scale, enough of a bite to be noticeable but really quite mild and wonderfully flavorful. 

Of course, batter frying is a bit tricky for Passover and in any case, I've never had much success batter frying vegetables at any time of year. But I saw some recipes for Chile Relleno Casserole that mostly didn't have any batter -- a plus for Passover! -- and no deep frying needed! I experimented with various recipes until I got something I like. It's a dirty job eating all those Poblanos but I'm willing to make that sacrifice for my vegetarian Passover recipes... This recipe is gluten-free and non-gebrokts (does not contain any matzah), but is not vegan (contains eggs, milk and cheese).

The trickiest part of this recipe for me was broiling the Poblanos and removing the skin. It was a bit disturbing to me to see the peppers get so black, looking burnt. But actually, the purpose of this broiling is to loosen up the skin and make it easier to remove. The Poblano skin is just a very thin, almost clear layer on top, with roughly the same texture and flavor as Saran Wrap. See the picture of some of the skin I removed. Saran Wrap is very useful stuff, but I don't want to eat it! So you broil the peppers until they are blackened and the skin is blistering, then you stick the peppers in a Ziploc bag to steam the skin and let the peppers cool down so they don't burn your fingers. Then you take the peppers out one at a time, tear off the stem at the top, rinse out all the seeds (or leave some in there if you want it extra spicy! Most of the heat in hot peppers is in the seeds) and tear the skin off of the outside of the pepper as much as possible. The pepper may break into pieces while you're doing that, but that's OK. You'll want it broken up for the recipe. You'll find that the pepper underneath the skin is not as blackened as you expected, and this broiling really brings out the flavor. Be very, VERY careful to avoid touching your eyes until you have thoroughly washed off any of the pepper from your hands -- that stuff can really burn your eyes!

I've written up this recipe for 8 servings made in a 9 x 13 pan. You can cut the recipe in half and make it in an 8 x 8 pan if you need fewer servings, but it will be just as much work so you might as well make more! You may want to pre-grease the pan with a little butter or extra virgin olive oil. I tried lining it with aluminum foil once but it was a mess -- the egg mixture leaked through the foil and cooked on the bottom of the pan, leaving the peppers without most of their egg! This shouldn't stick too badly because you will be lining the bottom of the pan with peppers.

Here is the full recipe:

Ingredients

• 6-8 large Poblano peppers
• 8 oz colby jack or cheddar cheese Note: don't use the pre-shredded bags of cheese that you can buy in the store; they don't melt as well as home-shredded blocks of cheese and melting is key to the flavor
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 15 oz can of tomato sauce

Kashrut Notes

• Fresh supermarket produce is not a Passover problem. Get your peppers fresh in the Produce aisle, not prepackaged in jars that may contain not-for-Passover oils or other ingredients. I know preprocessed peppers will save time and work but they are hard to find certified for Passover, as they must be!
• Cheese requires kosher for Passover certification, though most kosher cheeses have Passover certification year-round. I used Les Petites Fermieres Colby Jack for all of my test batches.
• Whole eggs in the shell and fresh milk in a carton are kosher for Passover without special certification, but must be purchased before the holiday if they are not marked as kosher for Passover.
• Tomato sauce requires Passover certification. I used just a simple can of tomato sauce, not the fancy bottled pasta sauces that are also available.

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees for broiling the peppers.
• Clean the peppers and put them in the preheated oven on a tray. Keep an eye on them. Flip them after about 10 minutes, when the top is blistering and blackening. Then flip them and let them broil for another 10 minutes or so, again, waiting for them to start blistering and blackening.
• Drop the peppers into a Ziploc bag and close it, letting the peppers cool while the steam is released from inside. This will make the skin easier to remove.
• Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
• While you are waiting for the peppers to cool, shred the cheese into a bowl. Mix the eggs and milk in a second bowl.
• When the bag of peppers is cool enough to touch, remove the peppers one-by-one, removing the skin as well as you can. Lay the pepper pieces across the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan with the inside of the pepper facing up. Repeat this until you have finished half of the peppers and covered the bottom of the 9 x 13 pan
• Sprinkle all of the shredded cheese over the peppers in the bottom of the pan.
• Continue skinning the peppers and them across the top of the cheese, again putting the inside of the pepper facing up.
• Pour the milk and egg mixture over the top of the peppers evenly.
• Put the pan in the oven uncovered and let it cook for 20 minutes, long enough that the egg and milk mixture has begun to harden.
• Pour the can of tomato sauce evenly over the top and put back in the oven uncovered for another 20 - 30 minutes.

Let it cool for about 5-10 minutes on the countertop before serving.