♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, I used to think the only difference between chilies is their heat level on the Scoville scale.

So jalapeño on one end and maybe a Scotch bonnet on the other end.

But it turns out, if you spend time in Mexico, they appreciate chilies for their different flavors.

The chile de agua, a sort of water chili, arbol, ancho, guajillo, et cetera.

So today on Milk Street we're going to cook with three different chilies to make three very different types of dishes.

We'll start out with tacos al pastor, which is pineapple and pork, and that uses chipotle chilies.

Then we'll use an ancho chili in a salsa roja.

And finally, we'll do a guajillo pulled chicken based on chicken braised in orange juice.

So stay tuned to Milk Street for cooking with chilies.

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♪ ♪ - Oddly enough, tacos al pastor are a Mexican thing, but it started in Lebanon, and the 19th-century Lebanese immigrants brought shawarma to Mexico-- spit-roasted lamb, thinly sliced, served with some flatbread.

But, of course, there wasn't a lot of lamb, they had pork, so that was translated to a pork spit.

And then in the '60s, someone took a pineapple and put it on top of the spit for no reason anybody can quite figure out.

So, reasonably clear, but a mix of cultures.

And I think a delicious mix, because pineapple and pork actually go together.

- Pastor is absolutely one of my favorite tacos.

I love the combo of the pork and the pineapple.

It's usually made with pork shoulder.

We're going to make it with tenderloin, which cooks a lot faster, it's leaner, it's a lot juicier.

- We don't have to build our own spit, too, which is a big bonus.

- That would be a project.

We're actually going to do the whole dish underneath the broiler.

It's going to begin with pineapple.

So let's go ahead and break that down.

First, we're going to cut off the top.

We're going to spin it, cut off the bottom.

And, you know, now we have a stable work surface.

We're just going to follow the curve of the pineapple and work around.

So you do want to double-check and go back for the eyes, which can be really tough and fibrous.

So you can put it down on the board and sort of cut out a little notch, which is the way I do it.

We have our peeled pineapple, we've taken out those tough eyes, and we want seven half-inch-thick slices.

So, Chris, we have our seven slices here.

We're going to take five of those slices, arrange them on a foil-lined baking sheet, we're going to brush them with oil.

We're going to broil these, and that sort of replicates the flavor of that roasting pineapple.

And let's season them.

It's always super-important to season every element of a dish start to finish.

So we're going to take those final two slices, and let's cut the core out.

That core's going to be really tough.

So you can just notch it out, it's that little triangle right in the middle.

Take those pieces, and this is going to form the basis of both a marinade and a salsa to serve with the tacos.

So to the pineapple we're going to add eight cloves of whole garlic, four teaspoons of ancho powder.

Don't try and substitute chili powder, which has other spices and seasonings.

Sometimes you can find dried whole ancho chilies.

They're actually dried poblano chilies.

- Do I grind them up in a food processor?

How do I get from this to that?

- You want to toast them in a dry skillet until they, they get a little aromatic, and you'll see the color darken a little bit.

And you want to give them a rinse, they can be a little dusty.

And then pat them dry, break them up, put them in a spice blender.

You're not going to get a very fine texture in a food processor.

So we have four teaspoons of that ancho powder.

We're going to add four teaspoons of ground cumin, four whole chipotles, plus a tablespoon of the juice that's in the can.

- Sauce.

- Then we're going to add four teaspoons of kosher salt, four tablespoons of brown sugar, and then four tablespoons of oil.

So let's go ahead and process this to a smooth paste.

(processor whirring) (whirring stops) Oh, yeah, it's looking great.

Smells fantastic.

So we're going to use a half-cup of this sauce to marinate the pork before broiling, and the rest we serve with the tacos.

I love these recipes where you get sort of double service out of one ingredient.

- Okay.

- So, Chris, we're going to take the sauce and we're going to add a tablespoon of lime juice to it.

Let's be honest, the sauces and salsas really make a taco, right?

- Yeah, but the combination of roasted pork and pineapple is not a bad foundation for the sauce, is it?

- No, no, no, no, no, no.

So we're going to use that as a sauce for our tacos.

Now let's go ahead and deal with the meat now.

We're going to use a half-cup of that sauce to flavor our pork.

So let's put that in our dish here.

Instead of the normal pork shoulder, we're going to go ahead and use a pork tenderloin-- cooks really fast, it's lean, has great flavor.

We're sort of going to replicate that spit-roasting.

We're going to take the tenderloin, split it in half lengthwise, and then pound it out flat.

Sometimes tenderloins need a bit of clean-up, right?

They can have a little silver skin, that sort of thing.

All you have to do is slide the tip of your knife underneath there and just slide it forward.

And then you can pull it back and cut it right off.

If you leave that silver skin on, it can be really tough and chewy.

And now let's go ahead and cut that in half lengthwise.

So just one long, clean slice.

So let's go ahead and grab a piece of plastic wrap, and then we can pound it out.

- You know, parchment paper also works well, because it doesn't get all wrinkly and stuff.

- It does.

Okay, Chris, that meat's looking great at this point.

So let's go ahead and season it.

Again, we want to season everything, start to finish.

And now pepper, too.

So now we're going to take that seasoned pork and we're going to coat it in that sauce that we made with the pineapple and the chilies.

So I can just drag it through there, slide it around.

Make sure to season each piece really well.

So that pork is coated really well.

And we're going to let it sit for 15 minutes at room temperature to marinate.

During that time, we're going to go ahead and we're going to broil the pineapple.

We're going to broil it about four inches from the broiler.

It should be about seven to ten minutes.

You want good speckling, but not charring.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ - Chris, that pineapple looks great.

It was under the broiler about ten minutes, there's nice speckling.

That's going to add some great flavor, some nice bittersweet qualities to that salsa.

So let's go ahead and transfer that over.

Use our fingers.

(laughs) - There.

You know, hands are good.

- They are, they certainly do the job.

So we want to make sure to go ahead and take the cores out of those slices.

They are cool enough to handle, so we can just do that.

Leaving them in big rounds does make it easier to get a nice, even char on them.

And we want to cut these into bite-sized pieces.

Okay, Chris, that pineapple's cut up.

To finish our salsa, we're going to add a third of a cup of cilantro-- just the leaves.

And then one tablespoon of lime juice.

Remember, we seasoned the pineapple before we cooked it.

- Right.

- So we're just going to toss that.

The meat's rested in that-- we can call it a marinade-- for 15 minutes at room temperature.

We can put it right on the sheet that we cooked the pineapple on.

And we want to cook it till it's charred, a little bit speckled again, should hit 140 on an instant-read thermometer.

Should take about seven to ten minutes.

♪ ♪ That's looking great.

The meat's been out about five minutes, give it a chance to rest.

Let's go ahead and slice it.

So you just want to cut it crosswise into thin strips.

I like using the tongs to anchor it down.

(knife and tongs scrape) And we're going to take three tablespoons of that sauce we started off with.

We're always thinking about layering the flavors, so it's exciting start to finish.

- Mm!

- Chris, this is looking great.

But we have one final step.

Can you bring those over?

- Mm-hmm.

- So to bring out the best flavor in corn tortillas, they really are best toasted.

If you have a gas grill, you can go ahead and toast it right on the burner.

Get one on.

(igniter clicks) And you just put the tortilla right on top.

Should take ten, 15 seconds.

♪ ♪ So, Chris, there's the last one.

Let's go ahead and make some tacos.

So the way I like to do these is put a little sauce down first.

- Okay.

- Then, let's pile on some meat.

You don't want to overstuff a taco.

- I knew you were going to... yeah.

- Because you don't want stuff falling out, and it's really about the balance of the meat, and the salsas, and the sweetness of the corn.

- You know, that raw white onion really gives it a nice, crisp, refreshing bite.

- While you're getting ready, I'm going to eat mine.

- Yeah.

- Oh!

Yeah, the sauce has some heat, but it's not, I wouldn't say it's super-hot.

But it's really the charred sweetness of the pineapple with the pork that's really magic.

- And you get that ancho chili powder, really lends this deep bass note to it.

- So tacos al pastor started in Lebanon with lamb, a shawarma.

It came to Mexico, where they substituted pork.

And then someone back in the '60s stuffed a pineapple on top of that spit.

So you get a great combination of sweet, charred pineapple and the pork, and, of course, a great ancho chili sauce.

The whole thing takes maybe half an hour.

Really, actually, simple to do, so tacos al pastor, pineapple and pork with a great chili sauce and really great thing you could make, I guess, any day of the week.

♪ ♪ So many sauces you find in Mexico are nothing more than fresh chilies and other vegetables thrown on a fire, charred, thrown in a blender, and you're good to go.

But what if you also used a dried chili to get a little more depth of flavor, and that's what we're going to do right now, a salsa roja with ancho.

- This is a really nice twist on your regular fresh salsa.

And it uses, as you said, ancho chilies, which are the mature, ripened, and dried version of poblano chilies.

- Just like getting old, you get smaller, yes.

- More complex.

So what I have here are three ancho chilies.

I've torn them up, I'm going to do this last one.

We're going to stem it and take out the seeds.

Now, on their own, ancho chilies have kind of a raisiny or even prune-like flavor.

But we are going to balance that out in this salsa with some fresh ingredients.

So we're going to toast them over the heat for a couple of minutes on each side.

That will soften them and bring out some more flavor.

So I'm going to heat this pan to medium.

And then, just with a spatula, kind of pressing them down.

Now, what we're looking for is a slight change in color.

Some people think they're going to darken, but they don't always darken.

It's just a change in color that gives us the indication that they are getting toasted.

So, Chris, it's been a couple of minutes on each side, and you can actually smell a nice, toasty fragrance.

- Yeah.

- Which indicates that they're done.

I'm going to transfer them into this bowl.

I have some boiling water here.

I'm just going to cover them and they are going to sit in that boiling water for ten minutes to soften.

So, Chris, our ancho chilies have been softened for ten minutes, and I drained the softening water.

Now we're ready to build our salsa.

So all of these are just going to go into the blender, and I have one medium tomato, cored and roughly chopped.

I have one garlic clove.

One shallot, roughly chopped.

Then I have two teaspoons of sugar.

And one teaspoon of salt.

And just for some liquid, I'm going to add a half-cup of water.

We're going to blend this for about 20 seconds until it's a smooth paste.

(blender whirring) (whirring stops) And that's it.

(chuckles) - This is like a recipe that's similar in difficulty to the one on the back of a Rice Krispie box.

I mean, this isn't really that hard.

- This is not hard, it really isn't.

There isn't even that much chopping or fine mincing involved, which is why I like it.

Ancho chilies you can have on hand, you know, in the pantry.

They store really well.

This is a great salsa to put together.

And it's very complex and fancy-looking.

And it tastes great.

All right.

- Mm... - (crunching loudly) - I'm waiting for the heat.

You know, it really does, it reminds me of a dark mole.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know?

It has that chocolatiness to it, which I guess the ancho chilies are famous for.

- Yeah, it has an earthiness and a smokiness, and then the fresh ingredients... - This is really good.

- ...kind of cut through.

- It's not really that hot, either.

- Mm-mm.

- It's got a little heat, but it's subtle.

- Even you can eat it.

- Even I can eat it, yeah.

So if you like a very fresh salsa, that's great, but once in a while, you want something that's earthier and deeper.

You can make it with ancho chilies, a little tomato, shallot, et cetera.

Goes into a blender, and in about 30 seconds, you're good to go.

A very quick last-minute salsa with deep, rich flavors-- an ancho chili salsa roja.

♪ ♪ Any time you go to Mexico, you discover something you did not know.

Because most of those recipes have really not made it here.

And one of them we really liked is chilorio, which is a pulled pork dish, but it's braised in orange juice and chilies.

And we've adapted that to chicken, but it's a very simple dish, but it has a lot of flavor.

- Absolutely.

Chilorio was typically made with pork shoulder that's been braising for upwards of four to five hours.

And while it's delicious, it's simply too long of a cook time-- for me, at least.

We switched out the protein from pork shoulder to chicken thighs, which still has that same kind of richness, and that tendency to pull apart and shred really nicely.

But it cooks in a fraction of the time.

The other thing that we noticed in chilorio is that they start the recipe by browning off the meat before they braise.

And that does develop a nice layer of flavor, but we could do the same thing simply by working with more concentrated flavored ingredients right from the get-go.

So I'm just going to set this dry skillet over medium heat.

And this is roughly five guajillo chilies that have been torn into one- to one-and-a-half-inch pieces.

So, because it's a dried chili, all of that flavor is very, very intense.

And I'm going to use a flat spatula to really press those chilies into the bottom of that pan.

Now, we do want to keep these moving a little bit.

We don't want them to burn at any point.

- We can start to smell them-- they're getting very fragrant.

How do you know when they're ready?

- What you're looking for is for the chilies to become a little bit glossier to the eye.

And, also, they're going to become a little bit more pliable.

We're actually going to soften them up further by soaking all these chilies in about one-and-a-half cups of orange juice.

And this is the other flavor that we're building into the foundation here.

So while those are soaking, I want to point out, when you go to a grocery store, odds are you're going to find each and every grocery store has a different selection of chilies.

So it can get pretty overwhelming.

So here we have a couple of our favorite chilies to work with.

This one right here happens to be our ancho chili.

And they do have this very deep, rich flavor, kind of reminiscent of dried stone fruit, maybe some mulled red wine, deep bitter chocolate-- stuff like that.

Here we have our chilies de arbol, which are really, really potent in their spiciness.

They're actually some of the spiciest chilies we use here at Milk Street.

Now, these are great for using whole in stir-fries to lend a little bit of their heat, as well as some of their bright flavor.

Next to those are the California chilies, and those have a really bright, sunny flavor to them, almost summer-like.

These can be used in things like salsas, simple tomato sauces.

They're a really nice, versatile chili.

Next to those look very similar, but those are the guajillo chilies that we've just worked with over there.

Those do have that same bright flavor, but if you can't find guajillo chilies out in the stores, feel free to use a California chili, no problem.

Now, finally, on the very end we have morita chilies.

Now, moritas are actually the milder version of a chipotle chili that's been dried.

So they are dried jalapeños that have been smoked.

So use those whenever you have a dish that has room for that slightly smoky heat.

We'll take a look at our guajillo chilies that are soaking in the orange juice after about ten minutes.

♪ ♪ Chris, our chilies have been soaking for ten minutes, so they are plenty soft.

These are all going to go right into the blender along with two tablespoons of white vinegar; five garlic cloves, completely whole; then we'll throw in two teaspoons of honey-- little bit of sweetness to counteract some of the other flavors we're throwing in.

We'll also throw in two teaspoons of coriander; one teaspoon of Mexican oregano; and, finally, one teaspoon of salt.

- Okay.

- And from there, we just blend this until it's smooth.

(blender whirring) (whirring stops) This sauce is going to go straight into the skillet that we toasted in earlier.

Medium-high heat, and we're going to bring this sauce up to a simmer before we add in our chicken, so that way the chicken can cook right from the get-go.

But notice how thick that sauce got.

Now, these chicken thighs are all relatively uniform in size.

And on top of that, we've trimmed off most of the fat.

And this combination right here-- the orange, the guajillo, all flavoring the chicken, this sets up a really strong foundation for this entire dish.

Now, the foundation is kind of the predominant flavor of the dish.

What would make this dish what it is if you took everything else out?

All right, so now that all of the chicken is in there, just going to give it a little toss.

I'm going to lower the heat down just to maintain that simmer.

We want to slowly cook it, so that way it maintains its tender texture.

And that should only take about 20 minutes, which is why I love this dish.

♪ ♪ So, Chris, as you can see, all that flavor has really colored the chicken well.

So what we're going to do is, we're going to shred this chicken down to make it a lot easier to eat in a taco.

But we don't want to shred this chicken the minute it comes out of the pan.

We're going to let that relax for about a couple of minutes.

We don't want it to cool down too much, but we do want to make sure that it is going to be nice and tender and juicy.

So now that all of the chicken is out of the skillet, we're going to actually crank the heat up to medium-high, and we'll cook the sauce for about ten minutes.

At that point, it should reduce down to about a cup, and it's going to be very thick, and coat each and every fiber of chicken after we shred it.

- Okay.

- So, Chris, as you can see, this has cooked down quite a bit.

All of those flavors have concentrated down to only about a cup's worth of sauce.

But we need to shred that chicken down first, so if you wouldn't mind getting started on that.

Just take two forks and break that chicken apart.

And see how easily it pulls apart?

And it's also very, very juicy.

I've already taken this off heat, and now I'm just going to use a spatula to scrape down the sides because a lot of that concentrated flavor on the edge is going to give us quite a wallop of flavor in the dish.

If you wouldn't mind just throwing all of that back into the pan.

Perfect.

So now all we have to do is toss that chicken in this sauce, and we'll have the foundation of this taco all ready to go.

Look at that.

- Mm.

- Now, the foundation is great on its own, but we have a couple of other tricks up our sleeve to really make that flavor pop.

As you see over there, we have straight-up white corn tortillas that are untoasted.

So what I'm going to do is toast them over a high heat flame.

And that way, we could get a little bit of char right around the edges.

And that little bit of char gives us a slight touch of bitterness, which balances out all the other flavors.

All right, Chris, this last tortilla is completely toasted.

And what I'll do is, I'll top them off with a little bit of this chicken right here.

Ah, it looks so vibrant in this really richly red sauce.

Now let's talk about the counterpoint to this dish.

The counterpoint is going to contrast all the flavors that we have going on in the foundation.

So we're looking at queso fresco to do exactly that.

It has this nice light creaminess to it, but it is very salty, dry, and crumbly.

It will quell some of the heat in that guajillo chili.

Now, the onion that we're using here is a white onion that's just simply chopped.

And that's going to provide an embellishment to this.

And, finally, we have these sliced radishes.

And these offer kind of this peppery bite, which I really enjoy.

You ready to eat?

- So I thought I was just having a chicken taco, but now I got a foundation, and I got a counterpoint.

I got a whole music theory here.

- Yeah, you have the entire music theory, and that's a great way to put it.

And once they all kind of play along the same line, they really do create something that's greater than its parts.

- Mm... - That brightness of the sauce really comes through.

- Now, I know I was making fun of you just a little bit about all these different parts, but it really is true that without the queso fresco, without the onion, it just wouldn't be the same.

It makes all the difference in this dish.

- I just love all the different textures you get, as well.

- So we started this recipe in Mexico with a braised pork shoulder and sort of a sour orange juice and chilies.

We adapted that to chicken here, and we made it much faster, as well.

We simply soaked guajillo chilies in orange juice, threw that in a blender with some Mexican oregano, and honey, and vinegar, made a sauce out of it, and essentially cooked the chicken for about 20 minutes in a skillet in the sauce.

Shredded it, and then added a few embellishments-- did I say that right?

- Yeah.

- (laughing): And counterpoints, as well.

So you have a really great mix of textures and flavors.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street, of course, at MilkStreetTV.com.

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Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

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- Since 1899, my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

Only Mutti.

- Designed by cooks for cooks for over 100 years.

Cookware collection by Regal Ware.

Handcrafted in Wisconsin.

- The AccuSharp knife and tool sharpener, designed to safely sharpen knives in seconds.

AccuSharp: Keep your edge.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪