Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

It is really too hot to do much in the kitchen these days (even with air conditioning in the house), but I can only eat so many salad and noodle dishes. My angelheart Eric has a lower salad tolerance than I do. Being a foodie, scanning the pantry for what we have on hand and the fridge or freezer for what needs to be used for a quick-cooking and flavoursome meal usually yields an interesting dish. Frankly, we probably have too many things that we have picked up on a whim or bought for only one recipe, leaving loads leftover. It seems such a waste to let things sit for too long, and most of us already know that some spices and dried herbs can lose their potentcy if unused within a year - give or take a few months.

I cannot remember for what particular recipe my angelheart Eric and I bought a bag of dried arból chiles. We do use them, but since we don't really eat especially spicy food (not because we can't take it, but mostly because I prefer to taste my food instead of being left with a numb tongue) we never seem to use more than one or two at a time. As usual, I turned to the Grand Bookcase for guidance. The lime green spine of Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday stood out, like sun rays bursting from behind a ominous and billowy clouds (this reminds me: I need to dust the Grand Bookcase). I spoke a little about this book in a recent meme, during which I was to randomly select seven cookery books. I hadn't read or used it since last summer, so rereading the book for the meme was quite nostalgic - the recipes are from the fourth season of the PBS show, "Mexico One Plate at a Time". I really wanted to reacquaint myself with Mr. Bayless.

The Salsa Roja de Chile de Arból is a traditional sauce used to dribble on top of tacos, tostadas, or any grilled goodies. For this recipe, however, it was being adapted as a sauce in which to bake chicken breasts, which typically need some pepping up. Furthermore, tomatillos are used in this salsa for their volume, brightness, and acidity. I didn't have four (or any, actually) on hand today, so I used two yellow tomatoes growing on the vine in the backyard in their place. I'm not saying this is always going to be an adequate substitution, for tomatillos are actually relatives of gooseberries, but the just properties I needed for this salsa could be achieved from using ripe tomatoes. Arból chiles rate between 15,000 and 30,000 Scoville units on the heat index, placing them somewhere between fiery poblanos and incredibly hot habaneros. They remain red (the colour that is indicative of their maturity; they start out green) after the drying process. Remember to wash your hands after handling them.

The Salsa Roja de Chile de Arból makes approximately one cup, which is enough to cover 4 chicken breast halves or 8 chicken thighs. Please find in parentheses Mr. Bayless' suggestions.

Spicy Baked Chicken with White Peach
(closely followed in Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday)

2 tablespoons olive oil (vegetable oil)
16 dried arból chiles (or 2 dried guajillo chiles), stemmed
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 medium sized tomatoes, cut in thirds (4 tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and cut in half)
salt
pepper
5 chicken breasts (from 2 1/2 breasts, but you could use up to 4 breasts - boneless, skinless is fine)
1 white peach, pitted and diced (3 peaches, which is far too many for my taste, or 1 mango, peeled and diced)
1 tablespoon runny honey

For the salsa:
1) Roll the arból chiles in your fingers to loosen the seeds.
2) Split the chiles so that the seeds fall out. Discard the seeds.
3) Put olive oil in a 10"/25cm skillet. Place over a medium heat.
4) Add chiles to the hot oil, turning constantly until fragrant and a change in colour occurs, approximately 30 seconds.
5) Use a slotted spoon to remove the chiles to a blender, leaving behind as much oil as possible.
6) Remove oil from skillet with a paper towel, then set over medium-high heat. Lay garlic and tomatoes in cut-side down.
7) Once tomatoes and garlic are well-browned, turn over to do the other side. Keep an eye on the garlic as it will brown all over before the tomatoes do. Move them to the blender as they are browned. The tomatoes should be well-browned in approximately 10 minutes.
8) Add 1/2 cup water to the chiles, tomatoes and garlic in the blender. Blitz until almost smooth.
9) Cool salsa in a dish. Taste and season with salt.

For the baked chicken:
1) Preheat oven to 400 F/200 C.
2) Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and lay them on a baking tray (skin-side up if not using boneless, skinless breasts).
3) Pour salsa over the chicken breasts. If you do not have 8 chicken breast halves, then do not use all of the salsa, which can be refrigerated for up to one week and used to spoon over anything you grill.
4) Dot the diced peach on top of the salsa in a single-layer.
5) Bake until cooked through, approximately 20-30 minutes depending on their thickness (30-40 minutes if using chicken thighs).
6) Remove the chicken to a serving platter.
7) With a spoon, try to remove as much fat from the pan as possible.
8) Add honey to the sauce and stir, squelching the now-soft diced peach as you go. Spoon over the chicken and serve.

The most time is spent deseeding the chiles, but after that step is taken care of, the rest of the recipe is a breeze to complete. The peach is necessary to take some of the edge off the chiles, allowing you to actually taste the sauce. Be sure to season the chicken breasts or else they could taste bland in the event that the sauce doesn't sufficiently penetrate during the baking process. This recipe certainly makes for a bold step away from plain salads (and, yes, I know that salads needn't be boring, but eating them every day almost reduces me to tears), which is just what my angelheart and I were looking for. And we got to use half of the bag of arból chiles in the process.

Labels: Chicken, Chile, Mexican, Peach, Rick Bayless