Three of Three: White-Rice Pilaf with Corn, Roasted Chiles, and Fresh Cheese (Arroz a la Poblana)

Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. The final preparation in this dish is really just a side of Pueblan rice, but it is very good Pueblan rice. The first step in preparation for the rice is to roast three poblano chiles, which I did over a burner on our stove:

After they are sufficiently roasted, you can just leave them in a bag to steam and pull the skins off. I, however, did a bit of a Shary Bobbins-esque half-assed job (it's the American way) when roasting the chiles, so a lot of the skin stayed on. (Mom, it's okay to put that word on the Internet because it's pronounced haahhf-aahhsed in a British accent, and nothing said in a British accent can be wrong, just like how no one who speaks German could be an evil man.... While I'm talking about Cape Feare, I have been sitting in meetings all week while people talked about how Kroll is going to do all of this work for us, and every time it came up, all I could hear in my head was "All hail Krull and his glorious new regime! Sincerely, Little Girl." My colleagues didn't seem impressed when I informed them of this fact, for some reason. Oh, well.) Anyway, I stemmed, seeded, and deveined the chiles and sliced them into short, thin strips. Here they are, along with the rest of the mise:

We have started to cook all of our rice along with onions in a bit of pork fat before adding the broth, even for risotto, so I love how the recipes in the cookbook call for that. I highly recommend it. That's what I did first:

I kept it going until the onion was translucent, but not browned. Meanwhile, I brought the broth and a bit of salt to a simmer, added it to the rice and onions along with the chiles and corn, and cooked for about 15 minutes. I took it off of the heat and let it sit for a few minutes before adding the queso fresco. Because it was late and I was lazy, I put it into bowls and turned it out onto the plate, rather than doing something fancier (plus, I'm still not sure about using what I bought to pass as ring molds).

Finally, here's a plating picture:

Mmm... it was very good. The fish was cooked perfectly, and it stayed nice and moist in the adobo. The adobo was excellent, with a nice depth of roasted flavors, but not overly spicy. Despite the lackluster roasting on my part, the poblanos were also more flavor than spice, but their spice did add a nice dimension to the rice and played well with the queso fresco. Overall, a great dish -- we had it two nights in a row (we made four) and it was just as good the second night when we ate it in tacos. I think it's a definite make-again dish.

Sources:
Veggies from Central Market
Jasmine rice from our pantry and who knows where before that?