North America · Volume 35, Tex-Mex, the Rio Grande and the Desert Southwest
Chile con queso
Texas
Illustration
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Researched
- 26 sources cited
Melted cheese and green chile, San Antonio's own invention, likely descended from Chihuahua's queso flameado, that spent much of the 20th century relying on Velveeta for a real technical reason: real cheese, heated alone, breaks. Chile con queso, Wikipedia
As tradition built it
Serves 4 to 6 as a dip. About 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 30g butter
- 30g plain flour
- 300ml whole milk, warm
- 300g mild cheddar, grated
- 100g Monterey Jack, grated
- 1 jalapeño, finely diced
- ½ small onion, finely diced
- 1 tomato, diced
- to taste salt
Method
- Melt the butter in a heavy pan, whisk in the flour, and cook for a minute without colouring, to make a roux.
- Gradually whisk in the warm milk to make a smooth béchamel, and simmer gently for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and fold in the grated mild cheddar and Monterey Jack gradually, a handful at a time, letting each melt fully before adding the next.
- Stir in the jalapeño, onion and tomato, season with salt, and serve warm.
What a modern chef changes
The same starch-stabilised emulsion, held at a precise temperature rather than eyeballed.
Rung uncited, an emulsion-stability logic borrowed from classical technique
Method
- Hold the finished queso in a water bath at 70°C rather than on direct heat, keeping the emulsion stable indefinitely for service without ever risking it splitting.
- Char the jalapeño and tomato directly over a flame before dicing, adding a smoked depth the traditional raw dice does not carry.