Chiles en nogada is a dish from Mexican cuisine

Mexican cuisine

Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...

. The name comes from the Spanish word for the walnut

Walnut

Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...

 tree, nogal. It consists of poblano chiles filled with picadillo

Picadillo

Picadillo is a traditional dish in many Latin American countries and the Philippines that is similar to hash...

(a mixture usually containing shredded meat, aromatics, fruits and spices) topped with a walnut-based cream sauce, called nogada, and pomegranate

Pomegranate

The pomegranate , Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall.Native to the area of modern day Iran, the pomegranate has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times. From there it spread to Asian areas such as the Caucasus as...

 seeds, giving it the three colors of the Mexican flag: green for the chili, white for the nut sauce and red for the pomegranate. The walnut used to prepare nogada is a variety called Nuez de Castilla or Castilla Walnut (Juglans Regia).

The traditional chile en nogada is from Puebla; it is tied to the independence of this country since it is said they were prepared for the first time to entertain the emperor Agustín de Iturbide

Agustín de Iturbide

Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Aramburu , also known as Augustine I of Mexico, was a Mexican army general who built a successful political and military coalition that was able to march into Mexico City on 27 September 1821, decisively ending the Mexican War of Independence...

 on the occasion of his naming as Agustín I. This dish is a source of pride for the inhabitants of the state of Puebla

Puebla

Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

.

Some Mexican historians believe the inventors of this dish were the Monjas Clarisas, although others think they were the Madres Contemplativas Agustinas of the convent of Santa Monica, Puebla. The chiles en nogada arise from the purest patriotic and national spirit.

The picadillo usually contains panochera apple (manzana panochera), sweet-butter pear (pera de mantequilla) and criollo peach (durazno criollo). The cream usually has milk, butter and washed nuts. The traditional season for making and eating this dish is August and first half of September.