Home made chili powder

Beanstalk

hey,

I want to make my own chili powder mix, i don't really need to be buying these:



I already use cumin with the mince, and then I add the spice mix. Does anyone know what blends of spices are good for chili (e.g. paprika, cayenne?)

Minder

There is a great chilli recipe in the Cooking Club forum. It's made with adobo sauce which can be bought in jars from Fallon & Byrne in Dublin. Or you can have a go at making your own.

Adobo sauce recipe

Called a sauce, the result is more of a paste and it will solidify after a few days in the fridge. I add a couple of tablespoon sized chunks to chilli recipes in place of chilli powder.

1 dried chipotle chilli
2 dried ancho chillies
50 ml red wine vinegar
90ml orange juice
30ml lime juice
50g chopped onion
30g chopped garlic
100g honey
10g salt

Dry roast the chillies, cut open and remove the seeds. Place the chillies in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soak for 30 minutes.
Put the soft chillies in a food processor with 30ml of the soaking liquid and pulse. Add everything else and pulse until smooth.

I find the chipotle are too fiddley to try removing seeds, so I leave them in for the extra heat. The ancho peppers are large dark purple (almost black) and have a lot of seeds so worthwhile trying to get those out. I use the recipe as a guide rather than accurately measuring everything. I store it in a jar in the fridge and it last ages - all that smoke, sugar and vinegar are natural preservatives.

If you are after making your own chilli powder, try grinding dried chillies in a coffee grinder. Be careful if you do, the powder nearly always gets in the air, then the nose and the back of the throat.

Two chillies for a good leat level and a huge flavour are chipotle (a dried smoked jalapeno) and Aji Amarillo. The second isn't a Mexican chilli, but the fruity flavour is a winner in any hot food.

the beer revolu

This video has a recipe for chili powder at around 4 minutes.

I suspect that that video was more than a little influence on Minder's fine chilli.

PS Tesco stock some Mexican chillies in their Ingredients section these days.

Minder

For the sake of good order, the Adobo recipe I posted is from the Dean & DeLuca cookbook - Dean & DeLuca is a famous New York deli. The chilli recipe on the Cooking Club forum that I linked in my previous post is Sparks' recipe.

the beer revolu

Sorry, tis Sparks fine chilli recipe, I suspect owes a little to the video I linked.
And nothing wrong with that - virtually all recipes are based on another recipe or is at least very similar to some other recipe.