Thursday, February 28, 2013

Roasted Poblano and Caramelized Onion Dip

I spend a lot of time shopping for food, and I love making little discoveries along the way. I have a pretty good mental catalog of what to buy where in Austin, but I still occasionally turn up hidden treasures at grocery stores. Recently, H-E-B sent me a gift basket full of things just like this. It was a basket of samples of some of their Primo Picks described as one-of-a kind goods from around the world. There was a bag of Sahale snack mix that Kurt grabbed immediately, and I wasted no time in claiming the bottle of Central Market Citrus Italian Sparkling Soda. We played nice and agreed to share the Central Market Organic chocolate bars, and I fell hard for the almond and Himalayan salt milk chocolate flavor. There were even a couple of bottles of Orchid nail polish which includes no formaldehyde, toluene or DBP just as I prefer in nail polishes. When I saw the bag of Central Market Veggie Chips, my first thought was dip. There was a recipe idling in my to-try stack for a caramelized onion dip with poblanos, and this was reason enough to pull it to the top. It’s from last August’s issue of Living magazine, and the recipe is available online

Naturally, I made a change or two to the process from the original recipe. The changes made it slightly more complicated, but I was happy with the resulting texture. Rather than cooking the poblanos with diced onion and stirring it all together into the sour cream and cream cheese, I roasted the poblanos under the broiler first. This was for two reasons. First, I really enjoy the flavor of poblanos when they’ve been roasted to a point of blistered skin. The skin is peeled, the seeds are removed, and the chiles are chopped. Second, when I make caramelized onion dip, I prefer to whiz the onions with the dip base in a food processor to finely chop the onions and distribute them in the mix. This is just my personal preference. I always finely chop onions. So, I went about caramelizing chopped onion in olive oil in a large skillet. Meanwhile, I roasted the poblanos under the broiler. Then, I toasted coriander seeds in a small skillet. The caramelized onions were transferred to the food processor with the coriander seeds, sour cream, cream cheese, and lime juice. That was processed until smooth, and I tasted and added salt. Last, I stirred in the skinned, seeded, and chopped roasted poblanos to give the dip with pureed onions some chunky texture and topped it with a sprinkle of cayenne. 

Chips and dip are always a dangerous combination, but this mix with roasted poblanos and the light-as-air, crunchy veggie chips was especially so. Who knows what else is hiding in the grocery store waiting to be discovered? I can’t wait to see what gems I find next time I shop and what dishes they inspire. 


24 comments:

  1. Unexpected finding for me, your nail polish thing... I will investigate. I cannot have my nails done as for some reason nail polish makes them brittle and flake in layers, very strange. Maybe I should give this type a try...

    (loved the image of you both "fighting" over the goodies...)

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  2. Mmmhhh, a wonderfully luscious dip!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  3. I love to discover something new in our local markets too. Lucky you to have these shipped right to your door.

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  4. Yummy. I love dip - those veggie chips are so great for dipping.

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  5. I love the look of this delicious dip :)

    Cheers
    Choc Chip Uru

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  6. Carameliyed onions have never let me down..the dip looks yum!

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  7. I love the roasted poblanos in the dip...something new to try.

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  8. YUM! I was drooling when I saw you post this on Twitter. This is just the kind of dip I could finish by myself as dinner while watching the Walking Dead.

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  9. I have fallen in love with Poblanos and Anaheims! And you can't miss with caramelized onions with me.Very nice!
    (I am mentioning you in an award blog,if you are interested.It will be posted up soon).
    Tonette
    http://tonettejoycefoodfriendsfamily.wordpress.com/

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  10. I love it when I have time to really have a good look around specialty food stores - it's a great way to lose track of time. I love the look of your dip and I'm sure I could make quite a dent in that serving xx

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  11. I would have roasted the poblanos, too. Great looking dip. Isn't it nice to get a package like this!

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  12. Love those CM veggie chips. I like your idea of pureeing the onions in the food processor to make sure they're evenly distributed throughout the dip. I'll have to give that a try.

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  13. It's always great to make new discoveries in a familiar surrounding.
    Lisa your dip looks wonderful, so creamy and tasty, well done :)

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  14. Roasted poblano are just divine! What a glorious treat, perfect for scooping!

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  15. tweaks are supposed to make things EASIER, not more challenging! :)
    amazing dip, lisa. i usually don't even go for appetizer type things because i prefer to save room for dessert, but this is irresistible!

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  16. Oh how I miss HEB and Central Market! This post made me wish I could go grocery shopping off North Lamar today :-) This dip looks so very good, and I'm eager to recreate it at home. Thank you so much for sharing!

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  17. There is nothing quite like a dip with crackers of some kind with a cold glass of wine.

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  18. Sounds like you scored quite a haul with your goodies! Love this recipe, and I totally agree that a roasted poblano has superior flavor. I've been playing off and on (mainly off) with caramelized onion dips (as a replacement for the soup-based dips), but hadn't considered adding green pepper to it - great idea! Fun post - thanks.

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  19. Discovering foods at a market is always so exciting! Love the poblanos are roasted in this dip, which makes its flavor pop more! This dip sounds like an appetizing mezze too!

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  20. The dip looks terrific, and the chips look great too! The gift basket sounds like a real gem.

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  21. WOW. This looks exactly like something I would LOVE!! I made a caramelized onion dip fairly recently on my blog but I love the sound of the peppers with it, LOVE!!

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  22. There's something about caramelized onions that makes everything better.

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  23. Delicious, I can almost smell the caramelised onion off the screen. I agree with you re the combo of chips and dips - so dangerously addictive! Very creative recipe Lisa :-)

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  24. This sounds so great! It's the first thing I'm making when I get some hands on poblanos. They are my favorite pepper so I'm always looking for new ways to use them.

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