Tag Archives: chile negro

Zucchini with chile negro, pine nuts & basil

Posted on by
Reply


It’s summer and let’s face it, Mother Nature is being a bit of a show off. She’s treating us like we’re minor royalty and dazzling us with all her best from raspberries so sweet they make you want to cry to tomatoes that taste – well, like tomatoes should taste. So we smile and say ‘yes please’ and ‘thank you so much’ and enjoy every last bite of it.

Of course we know it won’t last forever – it never does. We roll from one barbecue to the next putting a mental block on the words ‘autumn’ and ‘winter’. Right now it’s all factor 50, cold rosé, and nabbing the last beach chair before someone else does.

If we can be bothered to cook it has to be quick, simple and tasty. Luckily, just about everything is in season so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. If you’ve got your own vegetable garden – you-industrious-so-and-so – so much the better. Then you can saunter out and pick your own and be incredibly smug about it.

And while you’re at it, pick a zucchini while it’s still small and cute and before it looks like a club wielded by a grumpy giant. Make a quick chile sauce, toast some pine nuts – aka piñon or pignoli – tear some basil leaves and you are done. Because who wants to spend summer in the kitchen when all the fun is happening outdoors?

Serves 2-3 as a side dish

1 zucchini, about 8-9oz

2 Tbsp pine nuts

1 lemon, zest & juice

1 small clove of garlic or half of a larger clove

1 dried chile negro

pinch of cumin seeds

¼ tsp smoked paprika (sweet pimenton)

4 Tbsp olive oil

small handful of basil leaves

To make the chile sauce, place the dried chile in a bowl and cover with not quite boiling water. Allow to sit for around 15 minutes until soft and pliable. Remove the stem and seeds and chop roughly. Mix together the chile, lemon juice & zest, garlic, cumin seeds, smoked paprika and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Blitz in a blender, taste and add salt as needed.

Slice the zucchini into rings and set aside. Heat up a frying pan and toast the pine nuts until golden. Watch them like a hawk as they’ll burn before you’ve had a chance to check out your Instagram feed. Remove the toasted nuts and place in a bowl. Add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced zucchini. Cook over medium high heat until nicely browned on both side. Add the toasted pine nuts, stir and remove from the heat.

Place the zucchini and pine nuts on a serving platter. Tear the basil into pieces and garnish the zucchini with it. Drizzle the chile sauce over and serve any remaining sauce in a bowl on the side.

Venison chile stew with winter vegetables

Posted on by
2

Whoever created the endless Christmas soundtrack you hear every time you walk into a shop post-Halloween, has a lot to answer for. Bing, Frank, Nat and Co. must literally be rolling in their graves as the holiday season approaches. And spare a thought for the shop staff who are subjected to this torture every day. Surely the UN Human Rights Convention has something to say about this?

Yes, we know the weather outside is frightful. Yes, we know the fire is so delightful. So go ahead and snow already. And don’t even get me started on Frosty…

The only solution is to tune out and hunker down. Close the curtains and stoke the fire. Rustle up something hearty and warming to ease your way through a day that’s more dark than light. Find the advent calendar tucked in a box in the attic. Deck the halls – okay, forget that last one but you get what I mean.

It’s the perfect season for a stew laced with chile and winter vegetables. The great thing about this dish – and trust me, there is a long list – is that the longer it cooks, the better it tastes. I’ve used venison here but you could substitute beef or pork. The red wine creates a rich sauce that hugs the meat like a warm embrace.

Winter vegetables? Potatoes, carrots and turnips – baby ones if you can find them – are a natural but you could use parsnips, hard squashes or leeks too. This makes a big enough batch for a spot of pre-holiday entertaining or you can freeze the leftovers to tide you over during the long nights ahead.

Serve with a glass of red wine, a salad with a tart, mustardy dressing and silence. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

Venison chile stew with winter vegetables

Serves 4-6

2 lbs. diced venison

1 red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

½ cup flour, seasoned with salt & pepper

½ cup tomato puree

½ bottle red wine

1 Chile Mulato

1 Chile Negro

7oz baby turnips

10oz carrots (about 4 medium)

10oz small potatoes (about 15 or 16)

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 250º

Gently sauté the onion in olive oil in a deep, heavy, oven proof casserole dish until the onion is soft but not brown. Add the garlic and cook for an additional minute or two. Remove from the casserole and set aside. Dredge the venison in the flour and brown in olive oil in the casserole. Don’t overcrowd the pan – you’ll need to do this three or four batches depending on the size of the pan. When you’ve browned all the venison, deglaze the pan with some of the red wine, scrapping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add back in the onions, garlic, and browned venison. Stir in the tomato puree and more wine until the meat is just covered. Add in the two dried chiles, cover and place in the oven and cook for 3 hours or more, until the venison is tender.

While the venison is cooking, prep the vegetables. Peel the carrots and slice on an angle into chunks. Scrub the potatoes and the turnips. Either steam or blanch the vegetables until just cooked through.

Take the casserole from the oven and remove the two dried chiles. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. The chile should be warming but mellow but of course add in additional chile powder if you want more of a hit. The sauce should be thick and coat the meat. If not, strain out the meat and reduce the sauce on the stove top. Add in the vegetables and stir to coat with the red wine sauce and serve with any baby turnip leaves, chopped.

Texas Hold-Em Chili

Posted on by
Reply

Photo by David Munns

At the Chile Trail we love nothing more than something hot and sassy. And trust us, you don’t get any hotter or sassier than Kay Plunkett-Hogge’s cookbook Heat. The title says it all because this baby is one page turning love letter to that hunk-a-hunk of burning love, the chile pepper.

Plunkett-Hogge is British but born and raised in Thailand where they know a thing or two about chile. She’s lived in London, Los Angeles, Bangkok and New York and travelled the world so she’s tickled her taste buds with more than her fair share of chile. Sure she loves the heat (don’t we all) but she also loves the way chile plays well in the culinary sandbox with other ingredients to create a dish that sings. Heat has it all from subtle to scorching and nothing escapes the KPH radar including some mighty fine desserts.

Photo by JP Masclet

Choosing a recipe from Heat to share with you lovely Chile Trailians, was as difficult as choosing a favorite chile and you know how tough that is. But in the end we settled on Texas Hold’em Chili because it’s hot and sassy and you know how we love that combo. We’ll let KPH tell you the story behind this one…

 Texas Hold’Em Chili

The Kellys were Texans through and through, who just happened to live next door to us … in Bangkok. They introduced me to America’s south-west and to Mexico when I was just 12, jump-starting my love for the food of the New World. A good 35 years later, it’s an affair that shows no sign of abating. So this chili is inspired by those early Texan experiences and by Texas Hold ’Em, the so-called Cadillac of poker, wherein each player is dealt two cards, followed by five shared community cards. Where the player makes their hand from seven cards, we make this chili from seven chiles. Note that there are no beans or tomatoes here. It’s Texan. Deal with it. Note too that you need a cut of meat with some fat and connective tissue that will stand up to the slow cooking, such as chuck or shin.

SERVES 6–8

1.5kg (3 ½ lb) stewing beef, cut into 3cm (1 ½ in) dice

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 guajillo chiles


2 pasilla chiles

2 cascabel chiles

4 chiles de árbol

2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce and 2 tbsp of their sauce

1 large onion, peeled and chopped


4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped 1 jalepeño, seeded and chopped


1 serrano chile, seeded and chopped

2 tsp each of ground cumin, chilli powder and dried Mexican oregano (or regular oregano will do)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

200ml (7fl oz) beer

800ml (1 ½ pints) beef stock

2 tbsp cocoa powder or grated dark chocolate

1–3 tbsp cornmeal or masa


salt and freshly ground black pepper

chopped coriander, sliced avocado and sliced jalepeño, to serve (optional)

Season the meat with salt and pepper. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil and brown the meat thoroughly in batches until it’s a deep brown on all sides. You will need to add a second tablespoon of vegetable oil about halfway through. Then set aside in a casserole with a tight-fitting lid.

De-stem and seed the guajillo, pasilla, cascabel and chile de árbol chiles. Toast them in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, until fragrant. Remove from the pan and soak them for 20–30 minutes in enough warm water to cover. Then drain and put in a blender with the chipotles, adobo sauce and 4 tablespoons of their soaking water. Blitz into a paste and set aside.

Add the final tablespoon of vegetable oil to the non-stick pan, turn down the heat, and add the onion. Cook until just soft, then add the garlic, jalepeño and serrano chiles. Cook for another 3 minutes or so, until they are soft and really fragrant, then add the cumin, chilli powder, oregano and cinnamon. Stir together thoroughly, then add the beer. Bring up to a simmer, stirring gently to lift any residues from the frying pan, then pour everything into the casserole over the meat. Now add the stock, cocoa and chile paste, and season with salt and pepper. Bring the chili to a very low simmer, then cover and leave to cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Then partially remove the lid and cook for a further 30–45 minutes, or until the meat is tender.

Now turn up the heat a little and add the cornmeal or masa, a tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition, and cook it in until the whole chili has a silky, rich texture. Note that cornmeal will give a texture to your sauce, while the masa will simply thicken it. I prefer the cornmeal, but it’s a matter of personal taste.

Serve garnished with chopped coriander, sliced avocado and slices of jalepeño, if you like.

Photo by David Munns

 

 

Fiery Finger Food

Posted on by
Reply

There’s finger food and there’s finger food. While you scratch your head, I’ll explain. Basically anything you eat with your hands – potato chips, sandwiches, an apple all the way up to those fussy canapés they serve at foo-foo-shee-shee cocktail parties is finger food, right? Yes, but I’m thinking of something a bit different.

photo 1

When I think of finger food – real finger food – I think of food you could eat with a fork and knife but don’t. We’re talking food that invites you to get messy. Take asparagus for example. Now you could be all hoity-toity and cut it with a fork and knife, but why bother? Isn’t it a whole lot more fun to pick that spear up, dunk it in a whole heap of hollandaise and chow down? Sure you’re going to get some on your shirt. Heck yea, someone is going to think you’re a barbarian. But do you care?

Now the key to my kind of finger food is eating it with like minded people. It’s a whole lot more fun if everyone is taking their clothes off when it’s time for skinny-dipping, isn’t it? You want people who aren’t afraid to walk – no, run – on the wild side. And it helps if they’re greedy. So choose your guest list carefully or if no one comes to mind then eat by yourself. Remember, you’re great company – honestly.

Here’s a recipe to get started. Fiery shrimp in the shell with Gazpacho Salsa. This recipe feeds two hungry people but you could double or triple it with no problems. Bring the shrimp fresh from the BBQ. Plop down a bowl of the salsa and dig in. Some tortillas and guacamole wouldn’t go amiss either. And if someone is looking particularly anxious about ripping off a bunch of shrimp shells then help them out – finger food aficionados weren’t made in a day.

Fiery Shrimp with a Gazpacho Salsa

SHRIMP COLLAGEServes 2.

This is easy-peasy. Enough said.

1 clove garlic, peeled
1 Chile Negro, rehydrated in boiling water for about 5 minutes until pliable
1 lb shrimp, shell-on
¼- ½ red onion, roughly chopped
½ red romano pepper (or bell pepper), roughly chopped
3-4 large plum tomatoes, stem end removed and roughly chopped
3-4 Tbsp breadcrumbs
2-3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
¼ cup olive oil – half for the marinade and
half for the salsa
Salt

Remove the stem from the chile pepper. Place the chile and the garlic in the small bowl of a food processor. Don’t worry about removing the chile seeds – they’re mighty tasty. Pulse until a rough paste is formed. Add a bit of salt and mix again. Remove half the chile/garlic mixture and place it in a bowl with 1/8 cup olive oil. Mix and add the shrimp. Toss to coat. Set aside in the refrigerator to marinade – an hour or so is plenty of time.

Meanwhile, make the salsa. To the small bowl that has the remaining half of the chile/garlic mixture, add the roughly chopped tomatoes, onion, and pepper. Blitz until a thick puree is formed. Add the remaining 1/8 cup olive oil, vinegar and bread crumbs and pulse to mix. Taste and add salt as needed. Place in a serving bowl.

Fire up the BBQ. Remove the shrimp from the marinade and place on the hot BBQ. Cook for a minute or two until they begin to turn pink then turn and cook for another minute or so. Remove and place in a large serving platter or bowl and serve with the salsa. Lots of napkins and you’re good to go.