Real chili rellenos

Each time I make these, it reminds me how much work it is, and I don't do it again for a long time. But then I see the the big, mild Poblano peppers at the grocery store and get inspired again.

Traditional Mexican cooking is labor-intensive: pounding, boiling, peeling, simmering, roasting, chopping, shredding, mashing, etc. But the delicious food from all this work is nothing like the canned refried beans and "taco seasoning" mix we use for a quick meal.

These peppers have a papery, tough skin. You can't use a vegetable peeler, and the only way to get the thin membrane off is to char them heavily (I scorch them with a fork over a gas burner .) Then you wrap them in a cloth to steam, and when cool scrape the blackened skin gently off. It's messy and tedious doing just 4 peppers; I'd hate to have whole bushel in front of me.

Once that is done, the rest is easy. Make a careful slit in each chili and remove the seeds at the stem end. Slide in slices of Monterey Jack cheese, or any other filling. If you're nervous, secure the opening with toothpicks.
Next make the batter. It should be fluffy, and that means beating the egg whites separately and then folding them into the yolk and flour mixture. This is a "fritter" recipe from my 1967 Betty Crocker Cookbook and it worked great, although I'll bet B.C. never heard of a chili relleno.
An important step is dipping the chili in flour before coating with the batter. Then they are fried quickly, turning once. (I'll spare you the photo of yet another meal sizzling in oil.)
These are so good, topped with nothing but a little Mexican-style red sauce. In my salad days, I traveled around Mexico on a shoestring and bus travel was a real adventure then. That's a story for another time, but I remember the stations where we stopped to eat late at night, and the sight of big, fluffy rellenos stacked under lights in hot cases at all the food stalls.