- Today in the Test Kitchen,
we're gonna make Chili Colorado.
(upbeat music)
This recipe is really all about the beef and the chiles.
So we're gonna get right into the chile aspect.
Here I've got some ancho chiles, guajillo, and pasilla.
You can also use New Mexico chiles,
or any other chile that's more mild to medium,
nothing too spicy.
So I'm gonna get right into tearing these up,
because this takes a little bit of time,
but it's really worth the effort.
So these peppers, they're a dried pepper,
so to really get the full flavor of a chile,
it's nice to have this kind of dried pepper,
because it does intensify, and as you see here
with these guys, they're pretty pliable,
they're not hard, and very crisp and brittle.
So I got an example of one that's a little too dried,
kinda sounds like a maraca,
that means it's a little over-dried.
One thing that I really like about using these dried chiles
is the aromas and the color you get out of this.
The reason these are still kinda pliable
is they've got some oils in them,
and those oils not only give heat, but give flavor,
so by toasting a little bit,
you'll wake up those oils a little bit.
The chile sauce is really what makes this Chili Colorado.
It's not really about the state of Colorado,
it comes from the term colored red,
because this is a red chile sauce,
and as this stuff cooks down,
the flavors kind of intensify, the color intensifies,
and it becomes this really nice mahogany, reddish hue.
So I'm setting this to medium-high,
'cause right here, I just wanna get these toasting.
I'm not trying to cook 'em too much,
but just get a little toast on 'em,
that way, wake 'em up a little bit.
And you don't wanna burn 'em either.
They will burn kind of quickly, if you're not careful.
So I just wanna kinda move 'em around a little bit,
I can already smell them, it's kind of a spicy smell,
but it's not hot, you just get that aroma.
And I'm starting to just see a wisp of smoke, they're done.
So over this, I'm gonna go in with two cups of beef stock.
(stock sizzles)
So now that this is just kind of getting to a simmer,
we'll just put a lid on it,
after we get a nice little simmer going,
and then, honestly, I'll just take that right off the heat
and we'll save that for later.
It takes a little while for those to get tender,
to rehydrate, to really get ready to be put in the blender
so they can become nice and smooth.
Now we'll move on to the beef.
So here I have, this is some beef chuck,
this is actually a shoulder, you have the marbling
that chuck tends to have, which is beautiful on this piece,
but it's not like a chuck roast, which tends to be,
it's a little harder for most people to cut up.
We're going for one-inch cubes on this,
so I'll take the roast, cut it into a few steaks,
before I start cubing, it makes your life a lot easier
than working with a big piece.
Now we'll get that, cut it in some strips,
and then we'll cut it against there,
and we'll get our pieces.
And this is a braise dish, so it'll all get nice and tender,
but by having it in the smaller pieces,
it makes it cook a little quicker,
it's really nice and even.
I really love using this chuck shoulder.
There's no beans in this recipe,
there's no ground beef in this recipe.
This is a Chili Colorado, this is a stew,
think of it that way.
Any slow-cooking cut'll work, I just picked out
my favorite cut for this recipe.
And I'm cutting it into slightly smaller pieces
than stew meat typically is, because I wanna be able
to put this in a taco, because I love tacos.
So I'm gonna get this searing over pretty high heat,
because we wanna get a nice brown on this.
And the way to get this nice and brown
is gonna be high heat, you're not gonna get that
off of a medium heat or a low heat.
That's where you develop a lot of flavor.
This is on two things, right,
it's on the chiles and it's on the beef.
You're gonna get beef flavor out of browning,
and you're gonna get the chile flavor
out of the toasting, the simmering, the pureeing.
So I think these are two of the most important steps.
So I'm gonna use some salt
and a little bit of pepper, just get this seasoned
while I get my oil heating up.
We're gonna be working in batches.
The important thing with working in batches
is the heat is gonna be even.
When you add too much meat to the pan immediately,
the pan drops in temperature.
So when it drops in temperature, what happens?
The meat doesn't sear fully, it starts to boil.
It doesn't really get the browning that you want.
So already, because I got it on such a high heat,
you can see some of that browning going on.
There is more flavor in those little brown bits,
around the edge of the meat,
than there is in that whole piece of beef.
So now that we've started to develop a brown on these guys,
we're gonna get these off, and we're gonna go in
with our next round of beef here.
You're seeing that actual browning, it's not gray,
it's not steamed, it's not boiled, it's seared.
So, searing, important.
This being well marbled, but kinda lean at the same time,
it's marbled but it doesn't have a lot of exterior fat,
that means that fat's not rendering,
and so you're not getting a bunch of that rendered fat
in your pan, which means you may need to add
a touch more oil just to help facilitate that sear.
All right, so now we'll go off with this,
and I'll get my other aromatics going.
Now you wanna keep that heat a little bit lower
than it was before, because you're gonna be sauteing
some vegetables, so I'm gonna put this
at more of like a medium, medium-high,
'cause the pan's pretty hot.
So we got the onions and garlic, and then here
I'm gonna add some dried oregano, some dried cumin.
And then I'm just gonna saute this briefly.
Basically, I'm just trying to sweat out
some of that flavor from the onion,
trying to coax out some of those juices,
so that when it's braising,
some of that onion liquid is already in the pan.
Not really trying to brown-brown the onions,
just soften them a little bit,
and so I'm gonna add in the rest of this beef stock.
And there's two important parts to this step.
One, by adding this beef stock,
you're gonna help bring up that fond
that we created on the bottom of the pan,
and two great things about bringing up that fond.
One great thing is it tastes awesome
and really improves the depth and the flavor of your dish.
The second thing is, you've already done
half the work cleaning your pan.
You wanna bring this stock to a simmer.
If the stock was to go into that crock-pot cold,
along with room temperature beef,
it's gonna take that much longer to come up to temp.
It could take an hour to really come up to temp,
because a crock-pot is a gentle heat.
All right, so we're gonna get the beef
right into the crock-pot,
along with everything that's in that pan.
Make sure all those juices go in.
Okay, then we'll get in with all this here.
So we got a lot of that fond that came up,
all those onions, garlic, spices,
so I'm gonna set this guy up.
Now we can already get it warming,
because it's not gonna overcook in the time
that we're gonna mess with these chiles.
So now, when we get these in,
they're gonna blend up a lot easier.
So since we're doing this recipe,
it's all about beef and chiles,
why not use beef stock to rehydrate the chiles in,
to again just bump up that beefy flavor.
So we'll get this guy going, down low,
we'll kick it to high.
(blender whirs)
And that's all it takes.
Get right on in here with this one, right?
- That's a beautiful color - Look at that.
It's like a picante milkshake.
Now we'll get this guy into here, right?
So now we'll stir all that puree in,
we just wanna kinda evenly disperse it,
mix it all together, and then we will just leave it alone
and let it simmer for about an hour,
then we'll pull the lid off, because what we wanna do
is let that evaporate a little bit,
let it reduce, but you want that hour covered,
just to make sure that everything gets nice and cooked,
and then the reduction will happen after that.
So this has been cooking for two hours now,
it's nicely reduced, but you can smell the chiles,
you can smell that it's really cooked all together
and got a nice texture to it.
So, you know, Michael was jumping in here earlier,
and trying to try a piece of just meat
that had salt and pepper and seared off.
He didn't even get to try the flavor of all this,
so I'm gonna get him in here. - Oh, I'll try it, yeah.
- You need to try it-- - Get me in, yeah.
- Now that it's actually well flavored,
slow-cooked. - What are we gonna have?
- So I do have some tortillas,
that I just warmed up here. - Nice.
- So you can-- You're gonna have one too,
aren't you? - Yeah.
Oh yeah, why don't you, here,
why don't you go ahead-- - Help myself?
- Yeah, I don't wanna spill-- - How much liquid in this?
- Chili on you. - Just whatever
you feel like, huh?
- Yeah.
- What do you put on your taco?
- So I like--
- I mean beyond the meat and the delicious.
- Like to eat it just as is.
- Oh, man, these look delicious, brother.
- All right, taco cheers?
- Taco cheers.
- All right.
- Thank you, Gavin, appreciate it.
Delicious. - No problem.
- I'm gonna take this to town off of the camera.
- All right, there you have it,
some really nice Chili Colorado.
So if you like this video, remember to like,
comment, and share on social media,
and join us next time, as we're gonna make
Cowboy Skillet Pie here in the Test Kitchen.
(upbeat music)