New Mexico Red Chile

By Vegiegail

always go for the red chile sauce. Every year we purchase a bag of dried red chiles or a fresh ristra. The ristra we hang it in the backyard to dry. Once dry, I break off the pods at the stems and make a couple of big batches of red chile sauce. I freeze most of it in small containers for future use, but always reserve about two cups for enchiladas. Below is my recipe for New Mexico Red Chile Sauce. For the heat level, I try to buy “medium” when I have a choice, but most of the time, the only choice is hot – but we like it hot.

If you don’t have or can’t find red chile pods, you can always make a red chile from powder.

Ingredients

• 20 About 20 pods of dried red chile, washed, stems and seeds removed (just shake out the seeds once you remove the stem)Place all ingredients in a large pot and simmer for about 20 minutes. mjskitchen.com
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1/2 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 3 cups water or stock*
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seed*, toasted and ground in a spice grinder
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano (Mexican oregano if you have it)
• 1 tsp. salt

Preparation

Step 1

Rinse the chile pods. Break into pieces discarding stems and seeds.
In a large pot, add the water, chiles, onion, garlic, and oregano. Bring the water tRed Chile Sauce made from dried New Mexico chiles. mjskitchen.como a boil and reduce heat for a simmer. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or longer until the pods are rehydrated (see picture above). Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for another 10 minutes.
Purée – I usually purée in 3 batches in order to get a smooth texture.
Fill the blender with about 1/3 of the chiles, onion and garlic and some of the water. Add about 1/3 of the ground cumin. Purée.
Continue to purée until you have a smooth texture. Add more water if you need to. Once you get a smooth texture, pour into a bowl and finish off the rest of the chile in two batches.
To get a even smoother sauce, blend again after the sauce sits for 20 minutes.
Divide the sauce into 1 to 2 cup servings. Freeze what you can’t use in 3 to 4 days.*

How to Tone Down the Heat of a Red Chile Sauce – Here are a couple of ways:

Stir in 1 tsp. honey. Taste and add another if needed. Don’t add more than 2 tsp., otherwise it could become too sweet. If it’s still too hot…
Make a Red Chile Pumpkin Sauce. If you’ve already made the red chile sauce, then just add some pumpkin puree.