Top Shelf


The whole enchilada: sauce and all

by Ari LeVaux

 

The Spanish word “enchilar” means to apply chile to something. The verb’s most famous form, enchiladas, has come to refer to a pile of tortillas and cheese to which chile has presumably been applied.

While enchiladas scored the marquee use of the word, most anything can be enchilado (seasoned with chile), from eggs to meat to potatoes. All it takes is a squirt of hot sauce, a pinch of flakes, or the thick, rich sauce I’m going to teach you how to make.

Outside the Southwest, it’s often called enchilada sauce, but in the region it just goes by chile sauce, or even just chile.

But a question lingers, at least in the minds of the uninitiated: por que enchilar?

Much has been made about the feelings of pain and heat that chile brings, and these qualities are certainly part of its appeal. Even though enchilando one’s self doesn’t raise one’s body temperature, it will still make one sweat. And the pain ... well, it triggers endorphins, which in turn have the effect of dulling pain, even while one’s lips are burning.

There is a tribe of culinary masochists who participate in an extreme form of this fiery cycle of addiction. This kind of obsession is behind an arms race among plant breeders to create the spiciest chiles. The long-reigning red habañero reached 500,000 Scoville Units (the official unit of capsaicin heat). It was eventually usurped by a chile from the jungled mountains of India, known as the Naga Bhut Jolokia, or “ghost pepper,” which can hit a million Scovilles. The Jolokia was in turn surpassed in rapid succession by the New Mexico Scorpion, Infinity, Naga Viper, and finally the Trinidad Scorpion Butch L., which can hit 2 million Scovilles, which is approaching pepper spray.

To me, eating chile with the exclusive purpose of getting burned from the inside out would be like drinking wine for the singular purpose of getting really drunk.

Although chile pain produces its own kind of endorphin-fueled buzz and it can be fun, the joy of chile is truly in the whole package. In addition to making food spicy, chile delivers a range of tastes from bitter to sweet, with a pungent aroma and an earthy terroir. But if the chile is so damned hot that it slows me down, I end up eating less of it than I wanted. That’s why when cooking, I use mild or medium. If I need more heat I can always add it, but it’s extremely difficult to remove.

Hot sauce delivers its spicy flavor with the assistance of a tasty vinegar solution and is without equal in providing surgical chile support where you need it. If you’re lucky enough to have roasted green chile on hand, that can simply be chopped and applied to your food. Same with fresh jalapeños and other great chiles. In the Southwest, the enchilando mostly happens via a red chile sauce, a blood-red gravy with body and gravitas due to its density of chile.

Once a taste for red chile gets into your bones, it can be tough to shake. Luckily, it’s a habit that’s cheap, and the ingredients are easy to find. And it’s about as easy to make as a box of macaroni and cheese.

I should qualify: there is more than one kind of chile sauce, and there are various tricks and surprise ingredients. Purists will use only the whole pod and never powder. But the kind I’m referring to, made with powder and roux, is the most common.

Plus, you can always find red chile powder. The darker the better. Preferably without spices mixed in. This recipe appears consistently in many cookbooks, with nearly identical proportions and language, as if arrived upon by committee. 

New Mexico Red Chile

3 tablespoons fat (I like a mix of butter and olive oil)

2 tablespoons flour

1 garlic clove, minced, smashed or pressed

½ cup chile powder

2 cups water or stock

salt to taste

Optional: a pinch of oregano

Extra-retro options: pulverized toasted pumpkin seeds instead of flour; add chocolate powder to the finished product; or both.

Extra-Controversial: cumin (addition of which, if not mere mention, will get you chewed out or worse in some corners)

Heat the fat on medium. Stir in garlic, cook for a moment, and stir in the flour. Cook until the flour browns, about three or four minutes, pressing out all the lumps with a fork. Turn heat to low and slowly incorporate chile powder and then stock. Bring to a simmer and turn off, or cook slowly if you want it thicker.

So that is red chile sauce. Use it to enchila your tortillas, eggs, fries, burger or shrimp, diablo-style.

But one thing you shouldn’t do, is walk the streets of Albuquerque dropping various conjugations of enchilar. Admittedly, none of the various forms I’ve been using are in common use down south, other than enchiladas. But the sauce is no joke.