Xesla Research Organisation

At work we decided to have a Chilli cook-off. I decided I wanted to do something right out there. After some googling I decided on a green Chilli. Unfortunately it requires Tomatillo, a green fruit similar to a Tomato, when they grow on the plant they have a delicate papery husk, and are a delightful green colour when ripe. After 2 weeks of hunting for some, i found them canned at a wholesale food distributor in Woolloongabba.

Green Chile

• 1 kg pork. chop it into small 1cm cubes. discard any major fat.
• 3/4 Tbsp salt
• 1 Tbsp pepper
• 1/2 Tbsp garlic salt
• 3/4 Tsp Cumin
• bunch green onions
• 1 green capsicum
• 600g can Tomatillos ( about 10 )
• 3 roasted Poblano chillies*
• 7 roasted Anaheim chillies*
• 1-12 fresh Serrano chillies ( use these to control the heat )
• 1.5 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 Litre chicken stock
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup flour

* These are prefered types of chilli, any green chillis will do if these are unavailable, just beware of heat. To roast the chillis put them in a rack in a hot oven, or over a grill. When skin is brown and crispy, leave to cool then peel by scraping with a fork. remove seeds if you want to reduce the heat, I took out about 1/2 the seeds and it’s still quite hot.

Preheat the oven to 200 C, spread the pork onto a roasting pan.

Pound dry spices until they’re a fine powder and sprinkle over the pork. Do not stir or mix. Put this in the oven for 45 minutes. Again, Do not stir.

While it’s cooking put the tomatillos, garlic, onions, capsicum, and about half the chillies into a food processor, when it’s got a sauce like consistency taste it, add more chillies until it’s slightly hotter than you want. Some of the heat tends to cook off.

Remove the pork from the oven when it’s cooked, the spices will have formed a ‘bark’ on the pork, this is key to the flavours of the chile.

Move pork into a large oven proof pot. Pour half the stock and all of the green chilli mix over the pork and stir well. Put in the oven uncovered at 150 C for 3-4 hours . stirring occasionally, add in more stock if necessary.

When the time is up, remove it from the oven, and mash it with a potato masher, this will shred the pork , giving it less of a lumpy texture.

whisk the water and the flour together making sure there are no lumps ( if you have left over stock use this instead of the water ) and then mix through the chile, cook until there is no residual flour taste.

I refridgerated it for two days to let the flavours develop, and then reheated it. It wasn’t quite as green as I hoped, so I made a green sauce from coriander, green capsicum, vinegar, and a dash of chicken stock. I spooned this over the top to give it the appearance of being bright green. A flash of inspiration saw me cut out a template of work’s logo and sprinkle cocoa powder over the top.

The name of the dish is inspired by the Simpsons episode where Homer eats the chilli made with the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper and has a psychedelic trip.