Late October is when the dried chiles come out. Fresh peppers are done for the year, the evenings want something slow and dark in a pot, and a bag of anchos from the back of the cupboard starts to look like a plan. Most people tear them up, drop them in hot water and blend. That works. It also skips the step that makes the sauce taste like it came from someone who knew what they were doing.
The step is the dry pan. A heavy skillet or a comal, no oil, medium heat. Wipe the chiles with a damp cloth, snip off the stems, shake out most of the seeds and open them flat. Press each one on the hot surface with a spatula for about 20 to 30 seconds a side. You are waiting for two things. The skin turns a shade lighter and goes slightly blistered, and the kitchen fills with a smell somewhere between raisins, coffee and tobacco. That’s the oils waking up.
Then pull them off. Right away. A dried chile goes from toasted to burnt in seconds, and burnt chile makes a sauce bitter in a way no amount of sugar or salt will fix. If one starts smoking hard or turns black at the edges, throw it out and do the next one better. That’s not waste. That’s insurance on the whole pot.
Know which chile you’re holding
The names change once a pepper dries, which confuses everyone at first.
Ancho is a dried poblano. Wide, wrinkled, almost black-red, sweet and fruity with very mild heat. It’s the backbone of most red moles and a good place to start.
Guajillo is the dried mirasol. Smooth, shiny, brick red. Brighter and a little tangy, with moderate heat. It gives adobo and pozole rojo their clean red colour.
Pasilla is the dried chilaca. Long, thin and very dark. Bitter-chocolate and herbal. A little goes a long way.
Chipotle is a smoke-dried jalapeño. Leathery and properly hot, and the smoke comes through in anything it touches. Mulato looks like an ancho but darker and sweeter, close to chocolate.
Mix them. Ancho for body, guajillo for colour and lift, one chipotle for smoke. That three-chile base will carry stews, braised beans, enchilada sauce and a pot of chilli through the whole winter.
Soak, then blend, then fry
After toasting, cover the chiles with just-boiled water and weigh them down with a plate so they stay under. Fifteen to twenty minutes is enough. They should be soft and pliable, not falling apart. Taste the soaking water before you use it. Sometimes it’s lovely. Sometimes it’s bitter, especially with pasillas, and then fresh water or stock is the better choice for the blender.
Blend with garlic, a little onion, a pinch of cumin and salt until completely smooth. Push it through a sieve if you want the silky restaurant texture. Then the last step people skip: fry the purée. A spoon of lard or oil in a deep pan, very hot, pour the sauce in and stand back because it will spit. Stir for five or six minutes until it darkens and thickens. The raw edge disappears and the sauce turns glossy.
That’s the whole method. Toast, soak, blend, fry. Four short steps, and the difference between a red sauce that tastes of chile powder and one that tastes of dried fruit, smoke and slow heat.
If you don’t own a comal, a heavy cast-iron pan does the job fine. If you want one anyway, a flat cast-iron comal is cheap and lasts forever. For more on the pan you probably already have, see why the cheap Lodge skillet beats pans costing ten times as much.
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