Posts Tagged ‘The Chile Guy’

12 Jan

The Winter Kitchen: Colorado Seasoning Sauce

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, home food production, kitchen staples, recipe, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Lately I have been on a Mexican kick. Not the light, bright, tropical flavors that are so refreshing  in the summer, but the darker and earthier ones that are so warming in the winter. In my last post I wrote about the darkest and richest of my home-composed seasoning sauces, and this time I’ll give the recipe for my Colorado sauce. I call it Colorado, the Spanish word for brick-red, because it is that color and to distinguish it from red chile, which is made everywhere in my area with local chiles and is truly bright red. It is quite different from the Oaxacan mole colorado, which is enriched with nuts, seeds, and often fruits or sugar. This one is pure chile.

The selection, toasting, deseeding, soaking, and grinding of chiles can be a prolonged process. I’ve gotten around this by making a base that can be used about 85% of the time as a start, modified as needed with additional chiles and seasonings to suit a particular dish. That way I can make the base once and use it for quick meals.

First and foremost, get good chiles. This is not as easy as it sounds. For instance, a lot of places sell dried anchos, but they are generally dried out, brittle, and have lost much of their special flavor. A proper ancho chile is bendable and leathery, has a scent of good pipe tobacco, and when tasted raw has tobacco and raisin notes. In areas with a large Mexican population, you can usually get good ones, but in other areas the chiles often will be dried out, crumbly, and short on flavor. You can order from The Chile Guy and be certain of getting good stock.

The chiles used here are anchos, guajillos, pasillas  negro, and chipotle meco, shown from left to right above.

8 anchos

6 guajillos

5 pasillas negros, often sold just as chiles negros

2 chipotles mecos

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

1/4 cup home-rendered lard or avocado oil

3 cups chicken broth or water, heated to near boiling

1 14.5 ounce can fire-roasted tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon oregano

With kitchen shears cut  the stem ends off all the chiles, slit them down one side, pull out most of the seeds and veins, and flatten out as much as possible. Slice the onion fine, peel and chop the garlic, and heat up 3 cups of water or broth in a bowl.

Heat a comal or iron skillet to medium-hot. Be prepared to work very fast. Put one chile  at a time in the skillet, hold down firmly with a metal spatula, and toast about 20-25 seconds, even less if your skillet is really hot. For this recipe, you don’t want them to darken, blister, or burn. As each one is finished, toss it into the hot chicken broth or hot water. As chiles pile up, stir frequently so that they all get soaked. When all are soaking, rinse and dry the skillet. Put 2 tablespoons lard or oil in the skillet over medium heat, add the sliced onion, and sauté slowly with frequent stirring until medium gold. Meanwhile, put the chilies and their soaking liquid and the tomatoes and oregano in the blender and grind to a smooth purée. When the onions are cooked, add the chopped garlic and sauté another few minutes until the garlic is cooked. Pour in the purée  from the blender and cook the mixture over medium-low heat until it boils, then turn down to a simmer and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until it is very thick. This may take up to an hour depending on heat, but be very careful not to scorch it. Now taste and add salt.

You now have a thick chile concentrate which can be smeared on tortillas or sopes or chalupas or meat or chicken as is, but can also be added to rich broth to make wonderful sauces on very short notice. I keep it in the refrigerator in a jar, but if you don’t think you’ll use it that much, freeze it in large ice cubes and calculate about two cubes per cup of broth for a thin sauce or three cubes for a thicker one. It has a little capsaicin heat but not a lot. It’s my favorite seasoning to add to good cooked hominy corn to make posole, and can be used as is or with a little broth added to reheat leftover meat or poultry to make tacos. If you are fond of Oaxacan mole colorado you may be able to elaborate this base into some version of it, although if that’s your preference I think you’d be better advised just to make mole Colorado paste in the first place.

Don’t underestimate the capacity of chile pastes to bring vegetables to life. Stirred into a stir-fry or as part of a rub for roasted vegetables, they can help old favorites show a new side. I can also imagine a little eaten with tortitas, the wonderful Mexican vegetable fritters that are not much seen in the US. You can read more about them here, and I hope that you will, because Zarela Martinez is a truly interesting food writer. However you use your elixir, just be aware that scorched chiles taste acrid and unpleasant and don’t let this happen when using chile pastes.

The toasting step is vital in bringing out the flavor of the chiles. I always do it on the comal because that’s the way that I originally learned, but many sources recommend  oven toasting. I haven’t tried it, but here are directions if you want to experiment: Cook’s Illustrated. In my previous post on Earth and Fire Sauce toasting is replaced by frying in oil, a different and even more complex flavor.

 

 

 

11 Jan

The Winter Kitchen: Earth and Fire Sauce

Posted by wooddogs3 in Cook's treat, cooking, home food production, recipe, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

 


In the past, when I traveled in Oaxaca, I fell in love with the moles, as nearly every traveler there does. My favorite is the rich, complex, highly seasoned mole negro, and I have made the mole paste for it a few times but find that I seldom have enough uninterrupted time to collect all the ingredients, prepare and fry them individually, grind them together, etc. There are a few good commercial brands of mole negro paste, and on the rare occasions when I want this special dish, I tend to use them.

 

But I often crave flavors that are somewhat reminiscent of mole negro, involving deep, rich, earthy tones with a spicy seasoned overlay and an element of slow, dark fire. For those occasions, I have come up with a seasoning paste that I can make in the winter, keep in my refrigerator, and add where appropriate. Properly speaking it’s a salsa, but in the American minds salsa is the fresher lighter tomato concoction, so I call it a sauce. The ingredient list is simple, although if you live in an area that lacks a substantial Mexican population you may need to order the chiles by mail. The prep may seem time-consuming, but comfort yourself that it’s insignificant compared to the time spent making mole negro. You’ll need a blender.

The long, narrow Pasilla negro and the light brown chipotle meco are the two on the right

7 chiles Pasilla Negro, often just sold as chiles negros

7 chiles chipotle meco (medium-sized and light brown, not small and dark red)

1 7 ounce can chipotles in adobo, including all the liquid

8 cloves garlic, not peeled

1/2 cup raisins

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon Ceylon (canela) cinnamon or a bit less standard cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground allspice

2 tablespoons grated piloncillo or coconut sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt, oak-smoked if available.

2 cups avocado oil for frying

1/4 cup homemade lard or more avocado oil for searing the sauce

 

Cut the stem ends off all the dry chiles, cut them open down one side with kitchen scissors, and scrape out most of the seeds and veins. Snip each one across the length a couple of times. In a small deep sauce pan, heat the avocado oil intended for frying to about 350 or until a piece of chili put into the oil immediately bubbles and sizzles. Have paper towels ready for draining. Put a small handful of the chiles into the oil at a time, fry them until the color changes visibly turning as needed, fish them out with a slotted spoon, and drain them. Now put the cloves of garlic, still in their skins, in the oil and let them fry until the skins are somewhat browned, and drain them. Put the raisins in the hot oil and fry just until they swell and puff, then drain. Now set the saucepan of oil aside in a very safe place to cool off.

Heat the chicken broth to boiling in another pot, turn off the heat, and put all the fried chiles in the hot broth to soak for 20 minutes. Peel the garlic cloves and add them.

Put the soaked chiles and peeled garlic cloves and their fluid in the blender jar along with the seasonings, the sugar, and the canned chipotles with all their adobo fluid. Grind smooth, scraping down the blender as needed. Add a little more water if needed to keep the blender blades turning.

Now for the dramatic step that pulls the sauce together. In a large frying vessel (I prefer a wok to minimize the inevitable splattering,) heat the lard or avocado oil over high heat. When it’s very hot, pour in the purée from the blender jar. Use an apron and don’t lean over the stove, because it will sizzle and splatter viciously. Stir cautiously with a wooden spoon. After 3-4 minutes turn the heat down to simmer and simmer the sauce for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When ready, the sauce is very thick and will hold indentations when stirred, but it’s not cooked down to a paste. Taste it and adjust the salt if needed, but in my opinion use table salt and not smoked salt at this point. If it tastes a little bit on the acrid side, you may need to add a little more dark sugar.

Now you’re done and can quickly and efficiently add notes of earth and fire wherever you think they are needed. Use diluted or undiluted. The finished sauce can be spread directly on hamburgers immediately after grilling. A tablespoon or two per serving of black beans adds immeasurably to their meaty richness,  and this combination is especially good with a dollop of crème fraîche on top. A few tablespoons per cup of chicken or turkey broth makes a wonderful sauce for roasted or smoked birds. It could be used as a rub for grilled chicken, although you need to be careful not to burn it. I think that it might make a good grilling rub for salmon or other strong-flavored fish. It adds wonderful depth to sautéed mushrooms, and I think it would be great on grilled carrots or roasted sweet potatoes, especially with a pat of butter on top. For a quick snack or lunch, nothing beats a quickly griddled tortilla with a smear of Earth and Fire sauce, a sprinkle of crumbled cotija  cheese, and a few quick-pickled vegetables. A quick soft taco also makes a great cook’s treat. If you’re hungrier than that, add some frijoles negros or frijoles refritos as shown at the top of this post. A good dollop in a bowl of good posole elevates it to a feast.

It can be frozen after preparation for use later, either in jars or in individual portions in large ice cube trays. On late afternoons when you need something warm and not too filling, a cube could be dropped in a cup of hot chicken broth to make a warming “instant” soup.

 

A few notes on ingredients:
The best chiles that I know of come from The Chile Guy
The best beans and posole corn that I know of come from Rancho Gordo
The only lard worth using is the lard that you render yourself, not the awful commercial stuff. If you don’t want to render a little, use oil instead.
My favorite tortillas are the nixtamalized heirloom corn tortillas from Masienda. In my area, Whole Foods carries them.