Chile de arbol hot sauce

Before I moved to Houston, I did not like Mexican food. Back then I was uninformed, and I thought soggy rice with frozen vegetables, dry tortillas stuffed with greasy lettuce and bland ground beef and covered in an inch of rubbery cheese, and flavorless refried beans constituted Mexican food. Well, it was really masquerading as Tex-Mex. What an insult to Tex-Mex. And, since most people outside of Texas don't really differentiate between Tex-Mex and Mexican food, what an insult to Mexican cuisine.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the worst part about my experience. The worst part? Salsa... consisting of blended canned tomatoes and nothing else. Most thankfully, I moved to Houston and discovered that Tex-Mex and Mexican food are amazing, vibrant, complex cuisines and that a warm, tender tortilla made from scratch right in front of you is a glorious thing.

All that to say the following: I used to think I didn't like Mexican food or Tex-Mex food. Now I love it. However, I truly believe that all the "Mexican" food of my youth would have been a lot more palatable with proper salsa or chile sauce. Once I saw a show where a lady carried around ranch dressing in her bag everywhere because she felt compelled to put it on everything. Replace ranch dressing with chile sauce and I totally get it.

Last week we went to the local Mexican grocery store and I found myself staring at an enormous bag of chiles de arbol. And I started to remember this Rick Bayless recipe I saw for chile de arbol hot sauce. And we were planning to make burgers for dinner and I found myself thinking how nice it would be to drizzle hot sauce on my burger or to mix it with mayo to make a spicy mayo. And... before I knew it, I was looking up the recipe for his chile sauce on Mark's phone.

It was a little annoying to make - deseeding the chiles is a major project and it's easy to burn the pumpkin seeds if you're off deseeding the chiles. But the final product was so good that I can forget about all that. Since then, we've been eating this with everything: our burgers, on egg salad, on eggs, on beans and rice, on scrambled eggs, etc. This chile sauce is complex, smoky, a bit creamy, and it has a really hot, straightforward heat and the requisite bite of vinegar. And it is a beeeeautiful burnt orange-red color. I really love it. And I also love Rick Bayless' glasses.


Chile de Arbol Picante Sauce (from Rick Bayless)

• 55-60 dried chiles de arbol
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons shelled pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled, minced
• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 to 1 cup water
  

• Stem the chiles. Roll between your fingers to loosen the seeds. Break chiles in half and remove as many seeds as you can. Add to blender.
  
• Toast the sesame seeds in a heavy skillet on low to medium-low heat. They will turn golden and start to pop. Remove and add to blender.
  
• Toast the pumpkin seeds in same skillet on low to medium-low heat. Remove and add to blender.
  
• Add vinegar, garlic, chiles, and spices to blender with the sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds. Pulverize until mixture is smooth and uniformly orange red.
  
• Strain mixture through medium sieve, pressing and working solids to release all the liquids. Rick Bayless says to discard the solids but I added a little water, lime, and a tomato and used it to make a searingly hot salsa for dipping with chips.
  
• Add water to the sieved mixture (anywhere between 1/2 cup to 1 cup water, depending on how spicy and thin you want the final product to be). I added about 3/4 cup but would probably add less next time.
• Place in clean jar. Apparently this keeps indefinitely. But it really won't, because you'll eat it all.