The recipe I used included an ingredient called, simply, Chile Caribe. A quick Google search indicated that this was a recipe of its own, and the Carne Adovada preparation was going to be time intensive as it was. A few months back, I had prepared a wonderful paste called Schug. It's a Mediterranean blend with chiles, garlic, coriander, cumin, cardamom, pepper, onion, lemon, cloves and salt. I used that. However, more recent research into Chile Caribe indicates that the recipe was probably just calling for some processed red chile flakes, heavy on the hot seeds (although I should say that the Schug worked fantastically).
My research into Chile Caribe also produced another meaning for this ingredient. Chile Caribe sometimes refers to a concentrated red chile sauce which may be used in the preparation of innumerable red chile based dishes. This piqued my interest. I decided to prepare this sort of Chile Caribe. And of course, for me that meant I was going to do a PROJECT.
A recurring theme in the preparation of Chile Caribe was the observation that the best red chile in all of New Mexico (and therefore, in all the world) is Chimayo red chile. I made my Carne Adovada with ground Chimayo red chile. Actually, it was a blend of Chimayo and Hatch (New Mexico's standard). It was about $3.50 for two ounces. Had it been pure Chimayo, it would have cost $10. Traditionally, one does not use powdered chile. One starts with chile pods, dried, then soaks them, the purees them, and so on. Chimayo dried red chile pods are very hard to get your hands on - going on a trek to find them is considered something of a mystic journey.
We planned a Saturday drive to Chimayo to initiate our hadj. I called the local trading post (yes, really, that's what they call it), and was told rather severely that Chimayo red chile pods were not to be had for love or money - they had plenty of the ground stuff, at $30 a gram or some such. I could perhaps drive to the Santa Fe Farmer's Market and find a Mexican vendor who calls himself Chencho; Chencho sometimes sold Chimayo red chile pods. I asked if Chencho had a phone number. The Hispanic sounding gentleman on the other end of the line laughed and said, "no, Chencho is a Mexican."
I was jonesing to make my Chile Caribe Friday night, and drove down the street to Chile Traditions where we buy our Hatch chile every year. On a whim I asked if they sold Chimayo red chile pods, and the woman running the place hacked out in the worst smoker's voice I've ever heard that "Nobody don't grow that no more. Hack, hack, hack." Oof. Did they perhaps have some Hatch dried red chile pods? Oh sure, we have them hanging in the back in onion sacks. I didn't know what an onion sack was. Bonnie did. It was about two bushels of dried pods; they had the sacks hanging from the ceiling in the back room. I bought mine and drove home.
To get started I prepared some essentials. A glass of rum and a Cowboy Junkies album.
My Chile Caribe recipe first had me briefly roast about 24 pods at 300 degrees in the oven on a cookie sheet. While the pods were roasting, I borrowed an idea from another recipe, and boiled 3 or 4 quarts of water in a large sauce pan. Once the pods came out of the oven, broke the stem ends of the pods off, shook out the seeds, and broke them up into large pieces. Then I rinsed them, and placed them in the boiling pot and reduced heat to a simmer, and left them there for half an hour.
Leaving the pods to their own devices, I then prepared onions, garlic, and cilantro. I chopped one yellow onion and sauteed until golden brown in about 2 tbsp of olive oil. I chopped fine about 6 or so garlic cloves and added them to the onions and sauteed about two more minutes, then I added about 3/4 cups of fresh chopped cilantro and sauteed another minute or two. To the sauteed vegetables I added 3/4 cups of chicken broth (I like to use low sodium). I let this simmer down to about half the liquid. Somewhere along the line I threw in a tbsp of cumin, and another tbsp of coriander.Once the chile pods had simmered for thirty minutes, I removed them from the pot and placed them in a bowl. To this bowl I added the sauteed vegetable broth mix and stirred them all together.
The next step is to puree the mix. You can use a blender or a food processor; either will work. I used a blender. A note of caution; white vinyl blender lids will stain red forever if you don't wrap them in stretch wrap. Ours is black, so it wasn't a problem, but take my word for it.
I put about half the mix in the blender at a time. I added water from the large simmer pot until the mix was just covered, and then pureed the mash until it had a nice consistency. Not quite smooth, just a little course.
I repeated this for the second half, placed both batches of puree in a dutch oven (it's also what I sauteed the veggies in), added more of the simmer pot water, and stewed at at simmer for 45 minutes. I added simmer water as needed so as not to scorch the sauce, but you're going to want to get it about the consistency of a thick marinara. I added salt and threw in some balsamic vinegar for the final flavor spin. This is concentrate for use with other dishes, so don't get too exotic with the flavors and commit yourself to a flavor profile which might not work for a later preparation.Another note of caution: this mix, when being simmered, splatters like a son of a gun. Be prepared to wipe up a lot. Or use one of those screens you can put over pans (I don't have one but keep thinking of buying one).
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