Mexican Feast, Part 4: Red Chile-Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Greens

(adapted from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen)

Finally, the final course! This was really quite different from anything I've made before, so I was a little unsure of how it was going to turn out. Plus, at this point, I'd been cooking for over five hours, so it was getting a little sloppy. Let's just say the walls got their fair share of ancho seasoning.

It turned out pretty dang tasty, and made for good leftovers, too. Kind of sweet and smoky, less spicy than the shrimp. Make sure you have a good-sized pot - my dutch oven did the job, but it was a little tight. Add more water if you feel yours is getting dry - I added a cup, which is included below. This serves four; once again, it involves making a seasoning paste that you then use in the recipe.

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 smallish chicken (3lbs), quartered (I had no idea how to do this - found the linked video useful. I didn't use the carcass.)
1 medium white onion, sliced into strips
1 cup Essential Sweet-and-Spicy Ancho Seasoning Paste:
8 garlic cloves, unpeeled
4 oz dried ancho chiles, stemmed
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cumin
Scant 1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 2/3 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
8 small boiling potatoes (try the red-skin ones), quartered
4 cups sliced collard greens
Salt, about 1 1/4 tsp
1 cup water or more if needed

Start by heating the oil in a 4-6 quart pot over medium-high. Brown the chicken in a single layer (in batches if needed), browning on all sides. Remove the chicken to a plate, add the onion and fry until soft and browned, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To make the seasoning paste, roast the unpeeled garlic on a skillet over medium, turning from time to time until it starts to blacken in spots. Cool and peel. While the garlic is roasting, toast the chiles as well, pressing into the skillet and flipping. In a small bowl, cover the chiles with hot water and let them rehydrate for about 15-30 minutes. Stir from time to time, then drain.

Combine the oregano, black pepper, cumin, and cloves in a blender along with the chiles, garlic, and 2/3 cup of the broth. Blend to a smooth puree. Press through a mesh strainer into a bowl.

Bring your original pot to medium-high and when it's hot, add the ancho chile seasoning. Cook, stirring until it gets thicker and darker, about 5 minutes. Then stir in the remaining 2 cups broth and the vinegar. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add the chicken legs and thighs and the potatoes to the sauce. Partially cover and simmer over medium-low for about 15 minutes, then stir in the greens and add the chicken breasts. Add your cup of water if it's dry. Partially cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked, about 20 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken onto a serving plate, then bring the sauce and veggies to a boil over medium and reduce, if necessary, for about 5 minutes. Season with salt.

Pour the sauce and veggies over and around the chicken, then do the same with the onion. Serve with rice (probably sacrilege, but hey, we liked it).

Mexican Feast, Part 2: Chipotle Shrimp

(from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen)

The second course we served for our Mexican Feast, along with the chips and salsa, was Chipotle Shrimp, which tided us over till I finished making the chicken...erm, a few hours later. I love these shrimp - I've made them a few times before, and they are great - pop-in-your-mouth smoky-spicy.

This is really two recipes in one: first, the Essential Sweet-and-Smoky (ah, there's the adjective combo I was looking for) Chipotle Seasoning Salsa, and then the Chipotle Shrimp, which calls for that seasoning. The seasoning makes a lot of leftovers (it makes 1 1/4 cups, and you only use 2-4 spoonfuls in the shrimp themselves), which can be stored in the fridge and used for other things (added to wine for mussels, added to dips, etc.) - although truth be told, I've never done any of that. Missed opportunity!

Let's start with the Chipotle Seasoning:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses
Vegetable oil to a depth of 1/4 inch, for frying
4 oz dried chipotle chiles (Bayless prefers the red moritas, but I always use - because I can only find - the brown mecos), stemmed
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 tsp salt

In a medium saucepan, measure 1 1/4 cups of water, add the sugar and molasses, bring to a boil, remove from heat and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Set a skillet with the vegetable oil over medium heat, and when the oil gets hot (before it starts to smoke), add half the chiles. Stir and coat in oil until they start to smell spicy; some will puff up - cook for about 2 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to scoop them out of the oil and drop them into the sweet water and stir. Do the same with the rest of the chiles.

Pour off most of the oil in the pan, leaving a thin layer. Return to medium heat and cook the garlic, stirring until golden - about 4 minutes. Add to the chiles. Pour the chile mixture into a blender (with the water) and puree.

Return the same skillet to medium-high. When it's hot, add all of the chile puree to the pan. Stir, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. It will be very thick and will blacken and be shiny on top when it's ready. Season with salt if you want. Set aside.

Chipotle Shrimp
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 small white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium tomato
3/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tbsp olive oil
2-4 tbsp Essential Sweet-and-Smoky Chipotle Seasoning Salsa (see above)
1/2 tsp salt
2 lbs (about 50) medium-large uncooked shrimp, deveined and peeled, but with final joint and tails kept on

Roast the garlic cloves on an ungreased skilled over medium until they blacken in spots. If you have a large enough skillet, you can simultaneously roast the onion by placing it in a square of aluminum foil and putting that on the skillet as well. Let it brown and soften, turning as needed. While this is going on, roast the tomatoes on a baking sheet below a broiler until the skin blackens; flip and allow the opposite side to blacken as well, then remove from the oven and let cool before removing the skin. Let the garlic cool and remove its skin, too.

Combine all of the roasted ingredients in a blender along with the pepper, cloves, and 1/4 cup water. Puree.

Heat the oil over medium-high in a very large skillet. When the skillet is hot enough to make a drop of the puree sizzle, add the puree all at once and stir for several minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and keep cooking and stirring another 5 minutes or so. Now, stir in your Chipotle Seasoning Sauce a tablespoon at a time until they reach the heat you want (I used 3 heaping tablespoons). Remove from heat; add salt if needed.

Once your shrimp are prepped, return the sauce to medium-high and stir into the sauce until the shrimp are cooked, about 3-4 minutes. The sauce will coat the shrimp. Serve and enjoy!

Rick Bayless Mexican Feast, Part 1: Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa

(from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen)

Back in college, our friend Joseph treated us to a Mexican feast inspired by chef Rick Bayless. Over five years later, I still remember that meal. It was delicious, different, and I left fantastically stuffed.

Since then, I've made a couple things from the Mexican Kitchen cookbook - specifically, the Chipotle Shrimp and the Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa. But I hadn't really done much more than that - every recipe in the book looks amazing, but I will say that they're not exactly the kind of recipes that you just pick up and decide to make after work. So when we had our friends Steve and Johnna over for dinner last night, I decided to test out a few more.

The meal was great - even if we ended up eating the final course after 10:30pm. We started with the tried-and-true salsa and shrimp, and then...hours later...had Classic Red Tomato Rice (which uses the same salsa) and Red-Chile Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Greens.

I'll do this post in four installments, one for each dish. Note that if you were making this salsa and the tomato rice, you'd just double the salsa recipe and use half (2 cups) for the rice. Also, if you were making all the dishes at once, you could roast five tomatoes and about 20 cloves of unpeeled garlic, to save time (which I clearly did not).

So, for starters: Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa! (2 cups)

2 medium-large round tomatoes
2 large fresh jalapeno chiles
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 small white onion, very finely chopped and rinsed/drained
1/3 cup loosely packed cilantro, chopped
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar (optional)

You start by roasting the tomatoes, jalapenos, and unpeeled garlic. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet right below a very hot oven broiler. Roast until the skins begin to blacken, then flip and roast until the other side does the same. In the meantime, place the jalapenos and the garlic on a frying pan or skillet over medium. Turn them occasionally until both are blackened in spots.

In the meantime, place the chopped onion, cilantro, and cider vinegar in a bowl.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and let cool with the jalapenos and the garlic, then remove the skin from the tomatoes, the peels from the garlic, and the stems from the jalapenos.

Combine the jalapenos and garlic in a food processor and 1/4 tsp of the salt until they make a coarse paste. Transfer into a blender and add the tomatoes. (You could do it all in the blender, but the garlic and jalapenos get broken down better in the smaller food processor, at least mine.)

Pour the tomato mixture into your bowl with the onion, stir, and add the remaining 1/4 tsp salt. Let it sit and cool for awhile (you can put it in the fridge), then serve with tortilla chips!