If you subscribe to my newsletters or visit my sites often, you will know that I'm a huge fan of anything that remotely screams out southwestern - and especially if it's spicy. As I love to use fresh ingredients in my recipes whenever I can, I insist on capturing their beautiful, aromatic flavors - and you don't have to do much to accomplish this!

My Poblano Jalapeno Salsa Verde recipe incorporates roasted chili peppers (which take no time at all,) avocado and fresh cilantro along with minimal ingredients to create this delicious salsa or sauce that you can use as a dip with chips, a topping for tacos or in place of mayo or mustard on a sandwich.

The only cooking and preparation involved here is roasting the chilies, either on your outdoor grill or indoors on the stove top (as I did,) over the burners(pictured.) Alternatively, you may roast the chilies in a 400 degree F. oven until they are nicely charred, turning once in a while.




Although this awesome sauce packs a flavor punch on the palette, it does have a creeping, spicy and somewhat addicting bite to it. This is mainly because I left the ribs on the jalapenos before placing them in the blender - I like to tell it as I make it - so beware the faint of heart. You can remove all of the ribs if you would like this to make a milder sauce.



Ingredients


4 large Poblano chili peppers
2 large Jalapeno chili peppers
1 small avocado (approx. 1/2 cup)
1/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves
Olive oil
Salt and ground pepper to taste


Method

1. Okay, so let's roast and prep some chilies! As I said earlier, indoors or outdoors - simply place the chilies (nothing else added,) onto the grill or over the flame of your stove top until they start to char (move them around a little with a pair of tongs.) As they are done one by one, place them in a pan or plastic container with a lid for 10 minutes. This will create steam, which will make removing the skin a lot easier.

2. When the peppers are cool enough to handle, split them in half and with the back of a knife, scrape out the seeds and ribs. Turn them over and scrape away the charred skin - it's okay to leave some of the char on the peppers, it only adds to the flavor of whatever you are going to use this sauce for.

3. In a food processor place the roasted peppers, avocado and cilantro leaves and blend until the chilies are starting to look smooth - then, drizzle the olive oil through the spout with the motor running until you have reached your desired consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning with kosher salt and ground black pepper.

Chefs Note: Never rinse the peppers after roasting them; you will lose a lot of the smoky char flavor that comes from this technique.