So you bought dried chiles, What's next?

So You Bought Dried Chiles …What’s Next?
– by Michael Beary
Chef/Owner Zocalito Restaurant Aspen

There are many ideas on how dried chiles should be treated before they make their way into the recipe. I’m sure each chef has his or her reasons for toasting or soaking instead of boiling, and I’m sure there’s validity to all techniques. I must say the reason for my boiling method is simple, I import the chiles I use, and they’re extremely fresh…. for dried chiles. I feel the fresher the dried chile is, the less it tends to lose its flavor when boiled. As a matter of fact, a fresh dried chile doesn’t even lose its color let alone its flavor when boiled. Rick Bayless says to taste the water that you’ve boiled your chiles in and if it’s too bitter don’t use it. If the dried chiles are fresh, the water will have very little color or flavor and for that matter it will hard to keep the extremely bouyant chiles in the pan of boiling water, even if you have a rock on top of them. As for toasting chiles from Oaxaca (chilhuacles, chilcosles, taviche and pasilla de Oaxaca), I really feel it’s not needed… toast the rest of your ingredients if you want an even smokier flavor. These chiles have a very distinct flavor and I think that adding complexity to an already complex ingredient is simply overkill.

When I create a recipe with my chiles, I take a few things into consideration, including how mature the chile is, how fresh it is and how am I going to deal with the variations in my batch of chiles in order to get the recipe to taste the same week after week. We’ve all gone to market to get some jalapenos and upon arrival at the produce isle the jalapenos look big enough to be anaheims peppers… The first thing that goes through my head is how am I going to compensate for the different levels of flavor and heat that my chiles have? As with all dried chiles, the chilhuacles and pasilla de Oaxacas that I use so frequently change in flavor with maturity. Small or less mature chilhuacles tend to be spicer, not as earthy and less complex than fully mature chilhuacle. Granted being the importer and chef has its advantages, so I can blend different maturities of chiles to achieve the flavor profile I’m looking for in a recipe.

My advice is simple: buy the freshest dried chiles you can find (you should be able to squeeze one gently and it shouldn’t shatter like a broken glass ),then take into consideration the maturity of the chile and what you’re looking for as an end result in your recipe and don’t worry about the reconstitution of the chile …boil it, toast it, but remember these chiles are very expensive so don’t overdo it !