Red Chile Sauce
(By Chef Ronald P. Chavez)
Ingredients:
½ cup red chile-fine
¼ cup red chile-coarse
1/2 cup flour
½ cup cooking oil
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons salt
½
pound pork
1 large diced onion
6 cups broth
Combine pork, onion into two 2
gal. pot filled ¾ with water. Add salt
and pepper to taste. Boil until pork is
tender, usually 30 minutes.
Combine both fine and coarse
chile, flour, salt and garlic. Stir dry
until well blended. Remove pork and set
aside to cool. Pour 2 cups broth after
it’s done into combined dry mix. Take care to stir broth as you dip from large
pot to assure good flavor. Stir chile mix until well blended into a smooth
uncooked sauce.
Remove bones if any from cooked
pork. Dice boneless pork into ½ inch
squares. Set aside.Now comes the moment
of truth. Your sensibilities come into
play here. Pour ½ cup cooking oil into 2
gal. pot. Heat until it feels hot to the
hand above the pot. Do not allow to burn
or smoke. Once oil is hot, turn off
heat. This is a must. You do not want to burn the chile.
Now you need all the angels you
can muster. Pour uncooked chile mix into hot oil. Stir quickly and
constantly. Don’t worry about pouring
all the chile mix. At this point the
stirring is paramount. The remaining mix
can be added after oil completely absorbs the chile mix.
Next: turn heat back on medium hot.
Stir constantly, until a roasted chile aroma tantalizes your sense of smell. Add pork and mix it into chile sauce.
Pour 2 cups of broth into the
roasted chile mix. Stir! Stir!
Stir! Until sauce is creamy in texture.
Bring to a boil. Stir! Stir!
Stir! Now simmer for 30 minutes,
stirring often with last cup of broth added for desired thickness a little at a
time as chile sauce simmers and thickens.
Done! Kept covered in the frig,
it’ll keep for weeks. Pour over eggs,
enchiladas, potatoes, meats, beans.
Stretch your imagination and satisfy your appetite and warm your
heart. Have a chileee day!
Options: substitute chicken, beef, fish, any kind of
meat will do. Or you can eliminate all
meat for veggie sauce. Your call.
To order New Mexico chile contact Chef Chavez at
taosoiet@yahoo.com
Winds of Wildfire – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat and Think With Your Taste Buds – Desserts.
‘Taos Pueblo is home to the Tiwa trib. The first Spaniards named it pueblo, town,
because they lived in a multi storied adobe complex. The Pueblo has
stood for over a thousand years on its original lands, even though it’s
called a reservation or rez for short. These ancient people have
never known a forced march to a government imposed location which is
the common stipulation for the word “reservation.” Their long history
has been preserved mostly by a secret oral tradition. The tribe enjoys
an autonomous form of government as well as full citizenship in the
United States. They rule themselves through elected tribal officials.
Their lands extend to Blue Lake, nestled in the pristine valley high up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
and in various sized patches in and around Taos. No outsiders are
allowed to enter the Blue Lake lands without special
permission for they are held to be sacred. The pueblo compound is open
to the public for a fee. At the approaches to the Pueblo stands a
casino, where they have not lost the art of scalping.’
Billy Stonewofl works as a guide for
tourists that visit the pueblo. Like most of us he’s possessed with
his own personal demons. Billy’s demons consist of drugs and alcohol
and have taken him to the brink of suicide. Through the grace of his
god, this wasn’t to happen. To live with or hopefully destroy Billy’s
demons he has decided to revert back to the ways of his people. He will
go to the mountains, find a cave to call home and live off the land.
What Billy didn’t expect was to find one more demon to add to his
collection. This demon came in the form of gold. Will this add to Billy’s depressing life or will it be the answer to his prayers? I think the answer will surprise you.
Donato Atencio is Spanish American.
His demon came in the shape of losing his wife. Her death brought him
to the edge of suicide. Even though he came close to his final
destruction, he stopped and decided to take one day at a time. In doing
so he became a volunteer caretake for the 18,000 acres of land
surrounding Taos. He made a stipend of $10.00 a day, living quarters
and all the fresh air he could breathe. He owned nothing and owed no
one. But he still carried his demon with him wherever he went in his
lonely world. Would his living one day at a time finally run out and
allow him to end it all?
Amee Brooks brought her demons all the way from Boston when she bought her small farm outside the village of Questa.
The man she had loved with all her heart had deceived her. He had
turned her away from the desire to love again and turned her into a
recluse. To add to her demon was a neighbor who cut off her weekly
water supply that was the lifeline for her small garden. Fighting him
would be impossible. He was a native and she was a white outsider.
Would her demons talk her into giving up and moving back to Boston?
Billy, Donato and Amee have nothing
in common yet they have everything in common. The three have to deal
with their losses and move on with life but aren’t quite sure how. Will
they be able to help each other?
Winds of Wildfire
became a book of thought for me. It made me think about things in my
own life and how I have handled them and how I might have handled them
differently, making me wonder if I made the right decisions when faced
with my own demons.