You may remember about a month ago when my mom, dad, and brother packed up and headed to New Mexico for the weekend. The summer was nearing an end, and my mom had yet to have her green chile fix. And so they went. 72 hours. 4 green chile-packed meals. (24 hours of driving. Yikes.)

The following Monday morning, as my mom was checking Twitter, she noticed a tweet from Central Market about a hatch chile contest. A little background: hatch chiles are kind of a big deal in the southwest. Central Market hosts a Hatch Chile Festival every year from mid-August through Labor Day, and people buy them by the tens of pounds. Hatch chiles show up everywhere around town: in restaurants and in everyone’s personal kitchens. Personally, I live for the few weeks when Chuy’s has a hatch chile-infused Mexican Martini.

Anyway – the tweet. Back from her trip to NM and full of green chile recipe ideas, she fired this Hatch Green Chile Sauce recipe off to Central Market. And then, she promptly forgot about it. A couple of weeks later she was reminded when Central Market contacted her to say that she was a finalist.(!!) And so, this morning, we packed up her sauce and headed to the contest.

There were eight finalists with dishes ranging from hatch chile oatmeal to hatch chile cheesecake. Five local judges (you’ll notice the requisite fireman judge) showed up to taste and score the dishes.

My mom rocked it, if I do say so myself. We served our hatch green chile sauce over fresh breakfast tacos (potato, egg, and cheese – yum!). We didn’t win, but it was a lot of fun. (And then we shopped our depression away for the rest of the day. I’m kidding. Kind of.) No, but really – it was fun, and the winner made an absolutely mouthwatering green chile mango salsa served over pork chops. It smelled and looked amazing!

When we made this sauce at home for ourselves, we spread it on cheeseburgers. It was pretty amazing on breakfast tacos. And, I’m willing to bet we could come up with a million other uses for it.

Gather Up:
2 hatch, poblano or anaheim chiles, grilled, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 medium white onion, grilled and chopped
1 to 2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp. chopped fresh epazote, or fresh oregano leaves
1/4 cup cold water
1 tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients in a food processor; blend until smooth and serve.

Adapted to use hatch chiles, from a recipe by Bobby Flay.