Roasted Poblano with Orange Salsa

I wanted to make something that was clearly not the traditional salsa, possibly with a little sweetness.

Roasting poblanos was the neat part of this recipe from Salsa! Salsa! Salsa!. I just laid them on the gas burner and turned them as the skin blackened. The support tines of the burners were a little wide, so I got the clever idea to lay a wire rack across the burner. Once I saw that it was glowing red hot, I figured that was, in fact, a bad idea, not a clever one. I did get it off in time before it melted.

I rinsed off the charred skin, though our neighbor Heather reminded me that the proper method is shaking them in a brown paper bag. I'm pretty sure that this would better keep some of the smoky flavor.

The end result was a little bitter to start and, honestly, not a huge success. It definitely had potential, so it was worth working with.

It got a little better after the first day (I think all of them need at least a day in the fridge, like a soup or other sauce). I then pureed it with the immersion blender and added about a tsp of salt (a pinch at a time). This helped quite a bit. When I served it last night, it got thumbs up from Mary upstairs, so I think I'm on the right track.

Finally, I'm sure some of the bitterness came from the orange zest. I need to exercise greater care that I don't go too deep on the grating and hit pith.