I was following the recipe from Rancho Gordo for Red Chicken Posole.
I soaked the toasted peppers, used a cuisinart food processor rather than a blender to make a paste with onion, garlic. The paste isn’t going through my sieve. I put it back in the food processor, added liquid, blended further 2 times, but only about 1 10th of the paste will go through my sieve.
The skins are ground up finely.
Would you add the paste, that doesn’t go through the sieve and continue? Seems like a tbsp of paste from a cup of unsieved paste isnt enough for a posole
I used a fine mesh strainer, then switched to a colander with small holes. I started with a wood spoon, then a silicon spatula, then a wood spatula, then a soup spoon. I think I got enough through for tonight’s posole, but I kept the cup of paste that didn’t go through, and I might experiment tomorrow.
Does anyone know if the ancho skins would add bitterness , or is straining the paste mostly texture reason? Seems one NYTimes recipe doesnt require straining, but the other half dozen red chicken posole recipes mention straining the paste before adding it to hot oil and cooking it further. I had removed all the seeds prior to soaking the peppers.
You were using dried chilies, correct? I don’t recall straining mine, ever. You may want to consult a recipe from a New Mexican cookbook or web site, where posole is a near staple of their diet.
Alternatively, if you have a very powerful blender, and add enough liquid, I have no doubt they would strain well.
I’m curious now, so will research further, since it’s been awhile since I’ve gone through the process.
@Lambchop I will use a blender next time. Mine isnt that powerful. It’s a 25 year old Oster. I don’t usually use many appliances in my kitchen. I don’t like cleaning them!
@Phoenikia@shrinkrap
use almost the same recipe for my red chili sauce which I add to my Chile con carne as well as to various other dishes such as enchiladas, huevos rancheros etc.
However I use a mixture of dehydrated chiles, not just Ancho which is one of the holy trinities, but Pasilla and Guajillo as well. I also incorporate New Mexico’s Hatch chiles, Chile de arbor. I roast them briefly until their fragrance is released before they get charred, and add them to warm water for 30 minutes or so, removed the stems but leave the seeds in . Typically, when I am making this sauce, I use 5 of each type of chiles. Discard the water( it can make sauce bitter), Process them in Cuisinart with enough water or broth, then cook them on top of stove with caramelized onions, garlic, cumin, oregano bay leaf with more chicken broth ( or add Costco’s Better than Bouillion)
with just a teaspoon of sugar and to this, canned chipotle and adobo sauce. I never have to strain them This is simmered for about 45 minutes , adjust seasoning. ( I find I do not add flour to thicken) .
Here is an old picture taken July 2018 of Chile con carne with that sauce. I think the combination of the different kinds of chiles gives it a complex flavor. My son always wants to add some more tabasco for heat. Have not made Chile con carne but want to try and use ground chicken or duck since I a now allergic to red meat.
@ccj
Thank you so much. My local store here in Canada didn’t have guajillos or pasillas, so I only used the anchos last night. I will pick up some others when I have a chance.
I will use that unstrained paste that I saved, with some soaked beans today.
I did buy some Chiles de Arból . I will use them next time with some other peppers.
When you say roast them, do you mean in an oven? I usually do my dried peppers on the stove and look for a color like this (from my Hungry Hounds link)
I grew and dried three new peppers this year, and was planning to make a Harissa recipe, but now I see there are many good chili paste recipes out there. I have way too many dried peppers in my freezer.
@shrinkrap@Phoenikia
I bought large supply of Chile pods from NM perhaps 3nyear ago, kept them in one of the 4 Simple Human trash cans in my utility room, and just have a handful in the DR in Chinese Famile Rose Urns next to my kitchen . They kept very well and I think I may have enough for the next 3 years.
I bought one pound of each and I feel they are reasonable that way.
They came from https://www.thechileguy.com/chile-by-region/mexican-chile/
I used to toast them on top of my stove but it takes too much time so, I have been roasting them in my countertop oven, just enough until they are fragrant but before they get chard. I cannot find pictures of them in my file but they are in an earlier post with pictures of how I processed them and how they look like
What’s for Dinner#43 3/2019 the S March edition
I use a lot of dried chiles and In my own experience, FPs simply don’t do this job well. The sharp blade “chops”, however finely, they don’t “pulverize” the way blenders do. That being said, if a blender isn’t an option, letting the FPed paste sit for a while after it’s processed, maybe adding a touch more water, might help the pulp to “dissolve away” from the skins.
Personally, I also find a big textural difference between strained and unstrained chile paste when using thick-skinned chiles like anchos, mulatos, guajillos, etc, and don’t like it unstrained, but YMMV…
Also, fwiw, I often make chile paste is fairly large batches, since the marginal increase of time needed to blend and strain “more chiles” is much less than the set-up and clean-up time to strain “any” amount when you’re cooking something that uses the paste, and it keeps well in the fridge for “weeks”, and freezes well. And when I do that, I sometimes strain it twice. First through a relatively coarse strainer (~ 1/16"/1.5 mm mesh) and then - if I’m in a perfectionist mood and have the time, through a very fine strainer. If want to jump straight to the “very fine mesh”, it’s important to strain only a small amount at a time, using a spatula to rub it across and through the mesh. Trying to strain too much at once quickly clogs up the mesh, which is hard (or impossible) to clean while there’s still a lot of of unstrained pulp in it.
