AC called me last Wednesday night and asked if I was in the mood for a “cooking adventure.” It sounded better than eating a frozen pizza by myself so I agreed to help her make a recipe.
The recipe was one she’d made before. It was called Red Chile-Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Greens and it was from the cookbook Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen.
When I got to her house, she assumed (correctly) I wanted nothing to do with the raw chicken parts so she put me in charge of the sauce. First I roasted eight cloves of garlic on her stovetop’s skillet. Once they were on their way I stemmed and seeded eight dried ancho chiles. Have you ever seen an ancho chile? They are incredibly huge and very intimidating. The recipe directed me to toast the chiles until I saw a little wisp of smoke so I cut a slit down the side of each and flattened them with a spatula on the same skillet top I was roasting the garlic.
Then I made a huge mistake and touched my nose. People—do not do this. I write tips FOR A LIVING about how you should wear gloves and not touch your face when handling chiles and yet—completely gloveless—I touched my nose. I literally felt like I was breathing fire. I thought my nose was going to burn right off my face. I remember reading somewhere that dairy—not water—is a good way to cool your mouth after you eat something super spicy so I actually put sour cream on my nose. I kid you not. It helped ease the pain but only briefly. It would have made a good, albeit mortifyingly embarrassing photo, but I did not allow AC to capture that fine moment on film. After about 20 minutes I felt pretty much back to normal. I then had enough courage to put the chiles in a bowl of water to rehydrate—using tongs this time.
AC browned the chicken in a pot with some onions and then took the chicken out to fry the onions longer while I kept working on the sauce. When the garlic was roasted I peeled each of the cloves and tossed them and the rehydrated chiles in a food processor along with some dried oregano, black pepper, cumin seeds, ground cloves and some chicken broth. We blended it into a puree and then pressed it through a strainer to make sure there weren’t any chunks left.
We tossed the sauce in the same pan that had the onions in it and added more chicken broth and some cider vinegar. After that simmered a bit we returned the chicken to the pot and after about 15 minutes threw in some halved boiling potatoes and sliced turnip greens.
The whole time we were making this I kept thinking, “I am NOT going to like this. No way.” And yet, I was so hungry by the time we finished—THREE HOURS LATER—I couldn’t help but try it. And, people, it was amazing. Seriously good. Luke wasn’t around, so it was just AC and me with this huge pot of chicken, potatoes and greens and a loaf of pugliese (that’s poo-LYEH-seh for those that don’t have a clue like me) AC made earlier in the day.
A lot of work, yes. But worth every minute.