I’m that nerd that jumped at going to Central Market on the first day of its Hatch Chile Festival. I won’t disclose just how many hatch chiles I bought, but I will share a few things I couldn’t resist while I was there.
There are tons of hatch chile products on aisle end caps and displays, from hummus and chips to sorbet and chocolate cookies.
Nancy posted recently about how much she loved Savoy’s Chocolate Fix sorbet recently, so I couldn’t pass up Fire & Ice. Let me just tell you something about this concoction: it’s frozen gold. It tastes like a sweet & spicy margarita. It was agreed by the tasters that if you added a little tequila and put it in a glass, it’d make the best slushy margarita ever. Hatch chiles, lime, tequila and thyme are the advertised flavors, and while the thyme is mild, I was most impressed by the fact that I could taste the Hatch heat without actually feeling it at all. It wasn’t spicy – it just tastes like it could be. It is smooth and sweet while still imparting the flavor. It won’t survive long in the freezer, I’ll say that much. The pesto pictured is good, but only reminiscent of pesto in appearance. It tastes more like a green salsa (which I suppose makes perfect sense).
But the winner of today is the cheese. There is a Hatch chile monterey jack cheese available, and trust me when I say that you want it. Quesadillas with roasted tomatoes happened for dinner in its honor. I very seriously am going to stock up on it. Hatch chile tortilla chips were out for sampling, so of course I had to grab some of those too. Addictive.
