Salsa de Chile Guajillo

INGREDIENTS

6 GUAJILLO CHILES WIPED CLEAN, VEINS AND SEEDS REMOVED

6 OZ TOMATOES, BROILED

1 CLOVE GARLIC; ROUGHLY CHOPPED

SALT TO TASTE

1 C WATER

INSTRUCTIONS:

TOAST THE CHILES IN A SKILLET (OR ON A COMAL, PREFERABLY); DO NOT BURN THEM! WHEN DONE, ALLOW THEM TO COOL. OPEN THEM, REMOVE THE VEINS AND SEEDS. DISCARD THE VEINS. BROIL THE TOMATO. GRIND ALL (TOMATO, SKIN, GARLIC, TOASTED CHILE, SEEDS ) THE INGREDIENTS IN A BLENDER.

Salsa De Tomate Verde

Salsa de Jitomate Yucateca

Diana's recipe from "The Essential Cuisines of Mexico"

3 md Tomatoes (1 pound), broiled

2 ts Peanut or safflower oil

1/4 md Onion, finely chopped

1 The mashed tomatoes

1/4 ts Salt

1 Whole chile habanero, lightly charred

Remove any very blackened pieces of the skin from the tomatoes and mash the tomato roughly. Heat the oil and cook the onion, without browning, until it is soft. Add the mashed tomatoes, salt, and chili. Cook the sauce for about 8 minutes over a medium flame until it has reduced and thickened.

The recipe does not state this, but I found the Habanero flavor to be a bit light, so I think I will half the pepper next time, rather than leave it whole.

Salsa de Chile Cascabel

FROM "THE CUISINES OF MEXICO" BY DIANA KENNEDY P. 303

INGREDIENTS

10 CHILES CASCABEL

2 MD TOMATOES (ABOUT 3/4

3 CLOVES GARLIC; PEELED

1/2 TS SALT

2/3 C WATER (OR MORE)

INSTRUCTIONS:

TOAST THE CHILES IN A SKILLET (OR ON A COMAL, PREFERABLY); DO NOT BURN THEM! WHEN DONE, ALLOW THEM TO COOL.

OPEN THEM, REMOVE THE VEINS AND SEEDS. DISCARD THE VEINS. TOAST THE SEEDS IN THE SKILLET.

BROIL THE TOMATO. GRIND ALL (TOMATO, SKIN, GARLIC, TOASTED CHILE, SEEDS ) THE INGREDIENTS IN A BLENDER.

THE SAUCE IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SOME TEXTURE, AND HAVE A LOOSE CONSISTENCY, SO USE THE WATER RATHER THAN OVERBLEND.

Salsa Ranchera

Before charring

After charring

4 large ripe tomatoes, broiled, peeled, chopped

4 serrano chile peppers, charred, seeded

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons oil

1/4 cup diced onion

Salt

Place the tomatoes, chiles, and garlic in the jar of a blender. Pulse a few times to break up the biggest pieces.

Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat until thickened. This should take about 10 minutes.

Serve with Modelo, chilled.

Pico De Gallo Con Duraznos

Here is Diana's Pico De gallo con Duraznos recipe (Peach Pico De Gallo).  Turned out quite well, and has a nice kick to it from the Serrano Peppers.

Here is the final product, unaltered from above, but served with Arroz Blanco or White Rice.

Salsa De Muchos Chiles

Here is another salsa recipe from Diana Kennedy that I tried, Sauce of Many Chiles.

Couple mistakes, questions, I have regarding the recipe and what I found to work. For instance, the recipe in "The Essential Cuisines of Mexico"states that the chiles should crumble easily. I did not find this to be the case. The Arbols crumbled just fine, but as explained by a friend, this is just because they are so thin to begin with. Everything else I had to tear apart myself, and after blending just so much as to leave some rustic consistency, I found the larger pieces chewy. Not cool. So I blended everything again, to turn it into a sauce rather than a salsa. I did not add the cilantro either, at the end as I just ran out of time.

Very tasty, very smokey, and quite complex in flavor.

As seen here in order, we have the cascabel, morita, arbol, chipotle, and guajillo chiles.

Notice, how most of the chiles were still left in rather large pieces after trying to crumble. Chiles burn quite easily, and very quickly so I think you are better off under toasting rather than over toasting and burning.
You can see the salsa, after blending the first time, and while there is still some consistency, but with large chewy pieces of chiles. I decided to puree, and blend it all together after this.

The final product, pureed, and without cilantro. Very good still. Will make this one again, for sure.

Ingredients
2 chiles cascabel
2 chiles moritas
2 chiles de arbol
1 chile chipotle
1 chile guajillo
2 large tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 bunch chopped cilantro leaves
Directions
Heat a comal or cast iron skillet over a medium high heat. Toast the chiles, turning them constantly so they don=t burn, 30 to 60 seconds. Let them cool and remove their stems. Crumble them with their seeds and veins.
Toast the tomatoes and garlic until slightly charred. Let them cool. In a blender combine the chiles, garlic, tomatoes, salt, and water and blend until you have a rough sauce. Pieces of the chiles should be visible. Transfer salsa to a bowl and stir in the cilantro.

Chile de Arbol

Making Chile de Arbol, whoa hot.
 

Turned out a bit too runny.

Salsa De Chile De Arbol II

 

This was Diana Kennedy's recipe

which was
9 Chiles de arbol.
1.5 cups of tomate verde, cooked
.5 cup of water
salt to taste
1 garlic clove

I found that her recipes really tend to be on the hot side, so I doubled the number tomatoes and used one large garlic clove. Still quite on the spicy side. You can see I blended the salsa a bit too much, and a bit more texture would have been nice. Tuff when you doubled the number of tomatoes that go into a blender though.