By Ancho chile salsa
Sweet, dark and barely hot. The ancho is a dried poblano, and this is the mildest dried chile salsa there is — the one everyone at the table can eat.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 18 min
- Makes
- about 1½ cups
- Difficulty
- Easy
You taste the chile, it does not burn. Below a jalapeño.
Ingredients
Makes about 1½ cups
- 6 ancho chile deveined and seeded
- 2 medium tomato roma, charred
- 4 cloves garlic charred, unpeeled
- ⅓ white onion charred
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp mexican oregano
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
- 3 chile de arbol (optional) only if you want it to bite
Keeps 10 days refrigerated
Method
- 1
Snip the anchos open along their natural fold, pull the stem with the seed pod attached and shake out the seeds. Their veins are bitter, so this is not optional.
- 2
Toast them on a dry comal or skillet over medium heat, 20 seconds a side, pressing with a spatula. They puff slightly and start to smell sweet, like dried fruit. Pull them the moment they do.
- 3
Soak them in very hot water, covered, heat off, for 20 minutes. Ancho skin is thick and ten minutes is not enough.
- 4
Meanwhile char the tomatoes, the unpeeled garlic and the onion on the same pan until blistered and blackened in patches. Squeeze the garlic out of its skin.
- 5
Taste the soaking water. With ancho it usually comes out dark and sweet — if it does, use it. If it tastes bitter, blend with clean water instead.
- 6
Blend the drained chiles with the charred vegetables, salt, oregano and ¾ cup of liquid for a full minute. Strain through a fine mesh sieve.
- 7
Heat the oil in a saucepan and cook the strained salsa 8 minutes over medium, stirring, until it thickens and turns glossy. Stir the vinegar in at the end.
Good with
Pork · Enchiladas · Eggs · Roast chicken
If you are going to learn one dried chile salsa, and you are cooking for people with different tolerances, this is the one. Deep dark red, sweet, with notes of raisin and prune, and so little heat that a child can eat it.
The ancho is a dried poblano, and that is the interesting part. A fresh poblano tastes green and vegetal; the same chile dried in the sun loses that entirely and develops sugars and dried fruit. Drying a chile does not concentrate it — it transforms it.
A chile for body, not for heat
At 1,000 to 3,000 Scoville the ancho sits below a mild jalapeño. Anyone buying it expecting heat will be disappointed, exactly as with guajillo.
What it brings is different: meaty pulp, very dark red color, and a sweetness that rounds out any salsa. That is why it anchors so many adobos and moles, where its job is to give a foundation while another chile supplies the edge.
Three toasted chiles de árbol will do that here without altering anything else.
Twenty minutes of soaking, not ten
Its skin is among the thickest of all dried chiles. Ten minutes leaves it half rehydrated and you end up with bits of skin that neither the blender nor the sieve fully forgive.
Very hot water, heat off, covered, twenty minutes. And as always — boiling it makes it bitter.
Ancho soaking water usually comes out good: dark and sweet. Taste it, and if it is, use it. It has more flavor than any stock you would substitute.
Straining is not negotiable
Same reason as with guajillo. Fine mesh sieve, a spoon to push and scrape underneath. What stays behind is skin, and it has no useful flavor.
This is what separates a salsa that feels silky from one that scratches.
What you will actually use it for
More as a base than a table salsa, though it works as both — and in a mixed group it is the one nobody has to ration.
It is the adobo for carne enchilada, the foundation of mild red enchiladas, and the sauce for spooning over roast chicken or fritters. Reduced to a paste and rubbed onto meat before roasting, it becomes a marinade.
What can go wrong
Bitter. Veins left in, or chiles toasted too far.
Gritty. You did not strain, or did not soak long enough.
Flat. It needs the acid. Two teaspoons of vinegar changes it completely.
Brown instead of dark red. Old chiles. A good ancho is flexible and smells strongly of raisin when you open the bag.
Keeping it
Ten days refrigerated, and it improves from the second day as the raisin notes settle in. It freezes very well for up to three months — and since this is more of a base than a finished salsa, freeze it in half-cup portions, which is what a stew asks for.
Common questions
Is ancho the same as poblano?
It is the dried poblano. The fresh one is dark green, big and meaty; dried it becomes wide, wrinkled and a very dark red, and its flavor changes completely — the vegetal note disappears and it develops sweetness with raisin and prune.
How hot is ancho chile?
1,000 to 3,000 Scoville, less than a mild jalapeño. It is the gentlest of the common dried chiles. Three toasted chiles de árbol alongside will raise the heat without touching the color or the sweet profile.
Why do people confuse ancho with pasilla?
Because some US stores label fresh poblanos as 'pasilla', and the mistake carries over to the dried chile. They are different: ancho is wide and reddish, the dried poblano. Pasilla is the dried chilaca — long, narrow and nearly black.
Do I have to strain it?
Yes. Ancho skin is among the thickest of the dried chiles and no home blender breaks it down completely. Without straining, the salsa has a grittiness you notice immediately. Two minutes with a fine sieve.
What else is it good for besides a table salsa?
It is the base of pork adobo, of mild red enchiladas and of several moles. Reduced to a paste and rubbed onto meat before roasting it works as a marinade. It is more of a mother sauce than a table salsa.
Mine tastes flat. What is missing?
Acid. Ancho is sweet with no acidity of its own, so an ancho salsa can taste round and oddly lifeless. Two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar at the end lift the whole thing and make the raisin notes read.