New Mexico Green Chile Apple Pie

Drive through Hatch, New Mexico in late August and the air itself burns. Burlap sacks of green chiles pile high at roadside stands, and the smell of roasting peppers follows you for miles. The locals put these chiles on everything: eggs, burgers, enchiladas, even their apple pie. What sounds like culinary recklessness is actually genius.

This pie traces its roots to the Spanish missionaries who brought apple seeds to the Rio Grande Valley in the 1600s, and to the Native peoples who had cultivated chiles for millennia before anyone thought to call the territory New Mexico. When Anglo settlers arrived with their fruit pie traditions, the marriage was inevitable. Sweet meets heat. Comfort meets adventure.

The green chile doesn't overpower the apples. It arrives at the back of your palate after the cinnamon and sugar have done their work, a gentle warmth that makes you reach for another bite. The crust matters here as much as the filling. I call for a combination of butter and lard because that's what the ranch wives used, and because nothing produces the same shatteringly tender layers. If lard offends your sensibilities, use all butter. The pie will still be honest.