Red Chile Colorado

Chile Colorado

I adapted this recipe from Sauteur website, trying to make Adobada, but it tasted more like my friend Zelma Savage’s red chile, so I decided to make it into that instead. I still have to find a rival to my taco wagon’s spicy pork…it eludes me. I may have to kidnap the owner and hold him ransom. But, anyway, this here is a really good, really HOT Chile Colorado that is a New Mexico style chile, it is like a soup/stew form but you can take the meat from the liquid and make tacos…but I really like the stew liquid and eat it like a bowl of stew or chili.

5 oz. dried New Mexico chiles, stemmed

1 large onion, finely minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

Butter or oil to sauté onion and garlic

2 tbsp. New Mexico chile powder

2 tbsp. honey

1 tbsp. white wine vinegar

1 tbsp. ground cumin

1-1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Juice of 1 lime

Vegetable or Olive oil for frying pork

3 lb. boneless pork shoulder or loin, cut into 1″ chunk

1 can chicken broth (14 oz)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Warm corn tortillas and garnishments, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat chiles in a large stew pot over medium-high heat (no oil or butter, just dry), and cook, turning once, until toasted, about 5 minutes; transfer to a large bowl, cover with 8 cups boiling water, and let sit for 20 minutes.

While waiting for chiles, sauté onion and garlic in oil or butter in a separate skillet until soft and slightly browned, set aside.

Drain chiles, reserving all the soaking liquid.

Transfer chiles to a food processor along with 2 cups of the reserved soaking liquid, chile powder, honey, vinegar, cumin, cloves, cayenne, and lime juice. Add the sautéed onion/garlic to the food processor. Process all and continue incorporating the rest of the soaking liquid, you may have to empty your food processor once or twice during this process into a larger bowl. The goal is to have all the pepper seeds pureed with the sauce mixture Set this aside.

Return the large pot to medium-high heat and add oil and heat until just hot; season pork with salt and pepper, and working in batches, add pork to pot and cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes for each batch.

When all the pork is fried and set aside in a bowl, deglaze the pot with about a half cup of chicken broth. The goal is to boil the chicken broth and scrape up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan that is left over from frying the pork. Boil, scrape, boil, scrape, add more chicken broth if you need to, and get the stuff off the bottom of the pan. Then add the pork pieces and coat with the scraping juice from the pan. Add the rest of the can of chicken broth.

Add all sauce and soaking liquid and bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is thickened and pork is tender, at least one and a half hours, until it is the consistency you want. Serve with warm corn tortillas, garnish with cilantro, sour cream, diced onion and tomatoes, and lime wedges to kill the heat. SO DELICIOUS! You can’t stop eating it even though it’s hot.

Tortillas: I fry mine on my pancake griddle or skillet until just barely crisped, so they still fold but they are warm and a touch flaky. Mmmm!