Food & Drink

John Lewis’ Hatch Chile-Cheese Biscuits

To celebrate his favorite fall harvest, the expat Texan pit master puts a southwestern spin on breakfast

Photo: Brittany Nailon


As a boy living on Texas’ westernmost border in El Paso, John Lewis grew up eating roasted Hatch green chiles the way Southerners in other regions eat gravy—with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “I like green chile in everything,” says the acclaimed pit master, who decamped for Charleston, South Carolina, to open Lewis Barbecue in 2016. The corn pudding he serves there is loaded with the spicy New Mexican peppers. “It’s easily our most popular side dish.” And the enchiladas at his newest Holy City venture, Juan Luis—which serves what the chef describes as “border cuisine” rather than Tex-Mex—come topped with a kicky house-made Hatch green chile sauce.

As with French Champagne and certain old-world cheeses, rules apply to Hatch chiles: they only come from New Mexico’s Hatch Valley, the epicenter of the state’s chile production (and where Lewis’ great-grandparents once owned a farm). A Labor Day festival kicks off the region’s fall harvest; the scent of fire-roasted chiles pulls tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world to the tiny village of Hatch (population: 1,590). Roasting stands pop up all over town and locals place orders in quantities upwards of twenty pounds to see them through the winter. Lewis attended this year’s festival and brought back a mess to Charleston.

If neither Hatch nor Charleston are in your upcoming travel plans, you can still bring the flavor home with Lewis’ buttermilk green chile biscuits. “Think of them like those Red Lobster cheese biscuits—with green chiles,” he says. Lewis sources fresh chiles straight from Hatch farmers; for home cooks without a direct hook-up, he recommends the online outfitter Zia Green Chile. Zia sells fresh chiles, but also shelf-stable jars of already roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped peppers, cutting your prep time in half.


Ingredients

    • 3/4 cups roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped Hatch green chile (from about 5 fresh chiles)

    • 2/3 cups butter-flavored Crisco

    • 4 cups White Lily self-rising flour

    • 1 1/4 cups whole buttermilk

    • 3/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

    • 1 tsp. sea salt

    • Melted butter, for brushing


Preparation

  1. Roast green chiles on a grill until skin blackens on all sides. Place roasted chiles in a small container and tightly cover to steam for 30 minutes. Peel the roasted skins off the chiles and remove the seeds. Roughly chop and cool.

  2. Preheat oven to 475°F.

  3. In a large mixing bowl, cut the Crisco with the flour using your hands until pea sized clumps form. Add the remaining ingredients and mix with your hands until dough comes together, being careful not to overmix. Knead three times. On a floured surface, press dough into a disc about 1 1⁄2 inches thick. Cut out biscuits with a ring mold and place on a buttered baking sheet, pressing scraps back together as needed. Brush the tops lightly with melted butter.

  4. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until light golden brown all around.


Elizabeth Hutchison Hicklin is a Garden & Gun contributing editor and a full-time freelance writer covering hospitality and travel, arts and culture, and design. An obsessive reader and a wannabe baker, she recently left Nashville to return home to Charleston, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, their twins, and an irrepressible golden retriever.


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