Serious Cooking: What to do with dried chiles?
My lovely girlfriend just returned from the southwest with dried chiles (whats the plural of chile?). Let me be clear though, a lot of dried chili's. Big bags of them. Throwing a couple into a stir fry would make the bags last a year!
Need some help from the community... What can I do with all of them?
Bags include:
- Arbol chili pods
- Arbol chili whole (which look exactly like the pods)
- Japanese chile pods
- Chile habanero
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16 Comments:
Just to keep the terms straight; a chili is the fruit of a plant. Chile is a country along the western coast of the South American continent. There are all kinds of recipes for dried chilies, a lot if not most of them are for making rubs. There are also a great many recipes that use ground chilies blended with other spices for a dish called "Chili con Carne". Also blends for chili sauces, condiments and salad dressings. Most if not all are easily made at home provided you are willing to invest in a small coffee grinder devoted to grinding chilies.
Grumpy Old Man at 1:15PM on 05/26/09
Chile! Northern NM style-
For the chile arbol, you just need to use about 8-10 pods at a time. Make sure you remove the stems and as many seeds as you can. Put them in a blender with warm or hot water, and puree them for about 4-5 minutes. In a pan on the stove, make a light/medium rue with flour and oil (for meatless chile) I think about 1-2 tablespoons each of flour & oil should do it, but it depends on your amount of liquid. Whisk the chile mixture into the rue and let it simmer on the stove for about 20-30 minutes. Salt it, but remember if you add garlic, it will sour the mixture. Good for enchiladas or smothering burritos, or just a table condiment.
For chile with meat, do the same blender thing with the chiles, but brown the meat on the stove. When brown, add flour (I use 1/4 cup per each pound of meat) and cook the raw taste out. Then add the chile mixture and simmer for as long as it takes the meat to get tender. For ground meat, at least 30 minutes to get the flavors incorporated. You can add some garlic to this chile, as it will not sour like the meatless kind. This is good for enchiladas, bowls of chile & beans, fritos pies, and many other things!
As far as habanero and jalapeno, you can add those to salsa to add a good kick, but experiment first due to the potential heat.
Good luck!
soozm32 at 1:37PM on 05/26/09
Wow! You've been blessed with a motherlode of chiles!
Perhaps you could grind some of them to make powder for chili con carne? Or make Carne Adovada
You can blitz the chile japonaise with oil in a blender or food processor to make a great spicy condiment (or let the mixture steep for a while after blitzing and you have chile oil).
You could infuse vinegars with the chiles, too.
Amandarama at 1:40PM on 05/26/09
Save the seeds and plant them!
embolini9 at 2:02PM on 05/26/09
Be very, very careful with the habaneros. Hot hot hot!
I just made my first mole yesterday and that took 5 ounces of chilies, which was probably 12 to 15 individual large pods (pasilla and mulatto in my case). Take off the stems and seeds, simmer for 1/2 an hour with other ingredients until they soften, then blitz with an immersion blender. I used the May 2009 Bon Appetit recipe from Epicurious. Good stuff.
And for heavens sake wash your hands afterward. A lot. And don't touch your eyes, nose, or other sensitive areas. The oils in dried chilies seem to stick to skin just as tenaciously as the ones from fresh chilies.
jm chen at 3:30PM on 05/26/09
hey.... i just posted a thread like this too! It was specific to habaneros though and i got only a few responses. I'll be watching to see what's here.
Personally, I have a box of habaneros and some home-grown dried thai chilis. So i might end up making my own chili powder because the store bought stuff sucks. or perhaps my own hot sauce.
engmcmuffin at 3:42PM on 05/26/09
Sauces. Lots of them. In fact, you may want to buy some bottles and jars to store them in. And, perhaps a spice/coffee grinder, if you don't have one.
Moles. Salsas. Rubs. Chili Powder. Hot Sauce.
Caution: wear gloves while making anything with the hot chilis.
Enjoy!!
~ Paula
Paula Maack at 5:14PM on 05/26/09
crush lightly and put in a jar with oil. i keep one jar w/olive oil and just chiles, one with canola oil and szechuan peppercorns and chiles. perfect for starting stir-fries, drizzling on pizza & pasta, hummus, etc.
foodphilo at 10:47PM on 05/26/09
my mom toasts them (until they smoke & everyone in the house starts choking and gets watery eyes) and then grinds them into a powder with a mortar and pestle. it's great added to thai-style beef salad, cold shrimp, rubbed on chicken, etc.
dmarina at 12:04AM on 05/27/09
i'm not familiar with arbol chilis. i'll have to google it later.
I'd have to make some hot sauce and start gifting; or dry-rub blend and gift that, too.
If the chilis were appropriate, I think I'd make a batch of kimchi. My mom is shipping some homegrown chilis that she dried and had milled to order. I can't wait! This is going to be my first solo batch of kimchi!
wookie at 12:43AM on 05/27/09
Mixing them with oil as foodphilo suggested is a great use. We've used that in stirfries & hummus repeatedly. I believe there was a commercial product like this available, but I haven't seen it available lately (Pepper Sa-te). Making it yourself would be a good idea.
Also, consider putting some chilis into a jar of olives or other pickled foods (artichokes, mushrooms, garlic cloves) for some delightful kick, or add some to a tapenade.
HoosierFoodie at 2:52PM on 05/27/09
Actually GOM, the correct spelling for the pod of the capsicum plant is chile. This was actually read into the congressional record by Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. To paraphrase, chili with an "i" is the red stew that is made in Texas. Chile with an "e" is the fruit of the capsicum plant, which is the major agricultural product of New Mexico.
I like to take a handful of the dried pods and put them in a crock pot with a pound of tomatillos, a chopped onion, some garlic, and some cumin, salt, and pepper. Cover with chicken stock and slow cook all day. Run through a food mill or blender, and use as an enchilada sauce.
magtured at 3:25PM on 05/27/09
Many things,
The first two things that come to mind:
- A rub for grilling meat, chicken, fish, etc. Just remove the seeds and mix with some spices like salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc. in a mortar or in a blender.
- A salsa, just blanch some tomatoes and add them with the chiles, a clove or two of garlic into the blender for about a minute.
velascomike at 3:55PM on 05/27/09
Your girlfriend rocks! Once you've made your red chile sauce, as soozm32 has described, use the sauce to make carne adovada. Yes!
flutephobia at 5:02PM on 05/27/09
I think my suggestion is a little scrawny considering the beautiful ideas already listed above, but during the warmer seasons I love making a giant cucumber salad with a little garlic, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, salt and a fierce dried chili, like one of those fiery Japanese chili pods you have, cracked into it. It keeps in the refrigerator for nearly a week and it really compliments a lot of lazy meals that would otherwise lack some roughage and nutritional content, like a turkey dog or even crap packaged noodle weeknight. But I guess your stash is kinda huge...
JustNancy at 11:19PM on 05/27/09
My niece brought me a bag of chiles. She didn't know what kind.What I did was..toast in a dry skillet for maybe 3 minutes..they scorched fast. Added 2 c hot water to maybe 3c. chiles, simmered 10 minutes. Carefully blended, being careful not to spew hot stuff on me and kitchen (how do I know?) Added 1/4 c flour and 1/2 onion. Blended more, carefully. Strained through a China cap (or colander). Used as enchilada sauce. I saved the water and have used it as a drink condiment (bloody mary) though it's not really hot.
tennesue at 12:50AM on 05/28/09