Ah, Colorado. The land of breathtaking mountain views, skiing, and green chili. As rich as Colorado’s cuisine is, blending Southwestern flavors with their many local ingredients, I did struggle a little with the appetizer portion of this state. I knew green chilis had to take the center stage, and after extensive research, I came across this dish served at Elway’s Steakhouse in Denver. For all you non-football fans, John Elway is a legendary Broncos quarterback from the 80s and 90s. The aforementioned dish is lamb chop fondue — are you kidding me? Blending my love for football and cheese, I had to make this.

The dish is made with lamb chop lollipops and served with roasted sweet potatoes alongside the green chili fondue. Fondue is everything correct in this world, and I was so excited about making this.

I started the fondue by roasting some green chilis under the broiler. A trick I’ve learned is to remove the chilis as soon as the skins have blackened all over and immediately put them in a Ziploc bag and close it up. The steam will soften the skins and make it much easier to peel off. Now for the cheese — I melted butter in my pot, sautéed some onion & garlic, added the roasted green chilis after giving them a good chop, deglazed the pot with a splash of white wine, added cream and half & half, and then melted in freshly grated Monterey Jack and white cheddar cheese.

The lamb chops were super easy to make. Just salt & pepper them and sear them over high heat. Throw in some butter, smashed garlic. and rosemary, and baste them a couple times to really infuse the flavor. These aren’t traditional lamb lollipops but they worked perfectly fine, ok? Legend says you’re supposed to dip the lamb chop in the fondue (I’ve never been to Colorado, so I’m not the authority on this) but I wasn’t going to not dip hot, flavorful meat in some hot, flavorful cheese.

Deciding on the main course was as easy as 1-2-3. Colorado: green chili — next question.

A fun little anecdote: back in 2019 when I was even more amateur than I am now, I cooked a meal for each NFL team. I called it “Mel Cooks the NFL.” It was so fun and people seemed to really dig it. However the photos are laughable and I really struggled with cooking some of the unfamiliar dishes at the time. I’ve since really honed in my cooking stills over the years, and iPhones have significantly improved their cameras since then. I also learned about lighting.

Since it wasn’t my first rodeo with making green chili, I really took the time to try and make it perfect — or as perfect as anything made in a twenty-something’s home kitchen in her rental townhome can get. Thankfully I already had some chopped, roasted chilis from the fondue (I just made extra — thinking ahead like the girl genius I am), and I got good quality pork shoulder from a local butcher. I seasoned the pork liberally with salt and pepper and seared it on all sides over high heat to get a really nice crust on it. Then braised it in the oven for about 3-4 hours with some chicken broth and warm spices (cumin, paprika, etc) until it was tender and falling apart. Some versions of green chili keep the pork in large cubes, but I wanted to shred it this time for reasons you will read about later in this post if you decide to keep going.

For dessert, I made a “Palisade” peach tart but with peaches I bought from a Publix in Alabama. Colorado is famous for their Palisade peaches. The high altitude and drastic changes in temperature make for extra sweet and juicy peaches. The high temperatures during the day help build the flavor in the peaches, and the cold temperatures at night help retain it.

To peel the skins off a peach easily, boil them for about 30 seconds and then blanch them in ice water. They’ll come right off! I cooked the sliced peaches down in some brown sugar and cinnamon to get them soft, and then arranged them on a piece of puff pastry and baked it. Uh, that’s really it. You can’t go wrong with any kind of fruit tart. They’re so simple and always come out so delicious. Serve it warm with ice cream!

BONUS MEAL. I simply couldn’t capture Colorado cuisine authentically without including a breakfast burrito. Colorado loves their breakfast burritos. Especially smothered with their famous green chili. This is why I did shredded pork in my green chili, for extra smothering powers. I felt like large chunks of pork wouldn’t coat the burrito well enough.

I did a chorizo, potato, egg, and cheese breakfast burrito and poured all that delicious green chili over the top. This is the kind of dish that feels like a hug from the inside after an early morning hike in the Colorado mountains (I wouldn’t know, obviously). This is definitely a fork-and-knife dish, and she’s not a looker, but by gosh is she delicious.

That, my friends, was Colorado! Next stop, Connecticut.