One of my all time favorite Mexican dishes is Chile Colorado or red chili. It is usually beef in a delicious red cause made of peppers, onions, and spices. I find it to be best served with some pinto beans (Homemade), and a warm (Preferably Fresh) Tortilla.
The Ingredients:
- 3.5 Lbs Chuck roast (you could use stew meat for this)
- 1 bag of dried New Mexico Chilies
- 1.5 cups Beef Broth
- 1 Red onion, Sliced thin (not pictured)
- 2-4 Tblsp Cumin
- 2 Tblsp Mexican Oregano
- 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- 2 Tblsp Paprika
The Method:
First up is the beef, you will need to cube up your roast into uniform pieces.and begin to fry off the meat in about a tablespoon of oil. you will want to do this in batches to make sure you brown all sides of the meat, and don’t stew it in its own juices instead.
Once the meat is fried off you will transfer it to a crock pot with 2 cups of beef broth, to cook for approximately 8 hours or until it is fork tender. Mean while you can start you red sauce, for this you’ll need to boil some water, I use an electric kettle myself (way faster).
Clean your dried chilies by wiping them down with a paper towel and then de-seeding them. Place a pot on the stove and boil your water in it. dump in you thinly sliced onions, and dried chilies. boil for a few minutes or until the chilies and onions are soft. once the chilies and onions have done their cooking, its time to blend them down, toss all the solid ingredients into a food processor and blend them down as smooth as you can. Don’t worry it will never be perfectly smooth, there are other steps to get you to that point.
Once you’ve got your mixture blended as much as you can, pour it through a fine mesh sieve to get out any seeds or skin that remain. next carefully pour the boiling liquid through the sieve to get out any particles. re-combine the chili puree and boiling liquid and place back on the stove and reduce. set this aside as it is ready and awaiting some delicious slow cooked beef.
When your beef has reached that folk tender stage of existence its time to finish this all up. First return the chili sauce to the stove to heat up, next and this is optional but I think it make better flavor, pour all the cooking liquid from the crock pot into the chili and reduce again (lots of flavor concentrated in there now), finally add the sauce to the meat in the crock pot and you are all set.
Cook time: 8 to 10 hours
Serves: 8-10
The Down and Dirty:
Don’t have all those ingredients? Fine, the down a dirty solution is to toss some stew meat in to a instant pot with some beef broth, maybe add an onion in there. Once the meat is cooked and tender add in a can of red enchilada sauce and a slurry of cornstarch and water. Let the sauce thicken a bit and you are ready to go. This isn’t nearly as awesome, but it gets the job done
thisdudecookz 