Pasilla Chile

Four Horsemen’s glorious take on patatas bravas requires cooking the potatoes three times (once blanched, twice fried). We wouldn’t make you go through all that if it wasn’t worth it.

This cowboy-style "bowl of red" is all about tender chunks of beef chuck and a five-chile-pepper purée.

Savory, slow-cooked turkey and crispy skin are enhanced by a smoky pasilla purée and a sweet and tangy peach salsa in these Southern-inspired tacos.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mexican classics, check out the video classes.

There are two secrets to outstanding guacamole: chop the avocados instead of mashing them, and include a smoke-flavored chile. The richest and most flavorful avocados are the rough-skinned Hass variety. Because avocados turn dark when exposed to air, store guacamole in a bowl with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the surface. Make it within hours of serving.

Unlike other chicken soups that begin with water, this Mexican version starts with chicken stock; the resulting broth is richer and more complex than for basic chicken soup (page 43), since stock will impart flavor to (and be fortified by) the chicken. To make the soup, a whole chicken is simmered in chicken stock, which is then strained and combined with a fiery puree of dried chiles, charred tomatoes, and sautéed onion and garlic. Before being pureed, the chiles are toasted in a dry skillet to enhance their smokiness, then soaked in water to soften, a process that is widely used in Mexican cooking as a building block for many types of dishes (this is comparable to the way spices are toasted in Indian cooking as a flavor-building component for masalas and curry pastes). What distinguishes tortilla soup is the way it is served, since the garnishes are essential to the overall flavor; plus, they are incorporated at the table—not in the kitchen—so that each guest has a hand in creating and customizing the final dish. The garnishes suggested below are traditional and offer a nice balance of taste and texture, but sliced jalapeños (seeded for less heat) or radishes, diced fresh tomatoes, or other types of cheese (such as queso fresco or queso blanco) are also authentic, as is a dollop of crema (Mexican sour cream) or sour cream.

Texans like meat, and in Texas, chili is all about meat and spices. We make ours with chunks of sirloin and season it with a blend of ancho chiles, which lend an earthy, sweet, raisin flavor, and pasilla chiles, which give a spicy, deep taste. Our Texas Red Chili is a “wanderin’ special” on our menu, showin’ up every now and then. During deer season in November, we may even make it with venison.

I’m a little obsessed with mole (Mexico’s national dish, also known as mole poblano). I even visited its birthplace, the Convent of Santa Rosa in the beautiful colonial city of Puebla. Traditional mole takes days to make and is just as marvelous and multileveled as the most complex French sauce. Here you get a much easier version with nearly authentic results in terms of flavor. Do a little experiment and taste your mole right before you add the chocolate and then right after you add it. If you don’t get what it means when gourmands talk about “depth of flavor,” you’ll get it when you make this comparison. My great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and I all like to sprinkle it with plenty of additional sugar and a dollop of sour cream after it’s on the plate. You can make the sauce on its own and use it for very impressive enchiladas—or do as I did when I was a kid: spoon a few tablespoons over Mexican rice and chow down.

Adapted from Chef Jim Cohen, Chef/Partner, The Empire Restaurant, Louisville, Colorado, and Pizzeria da Lupo, Boulder, Colorado This showstopper was created by Jim Cohen, who has both updated and upended tradition. Black tea? Pasilla chiles? Sweet fruit? Use ancho chiles if you can't find pasillas.

This dish is all about patience; the chile sauce takes just a few minutes to prepare and can be done while the lamb shanks are browning. But after combining the two with the mushrooms you must wait, sometimes for a few hours, for the shanks to become completely tender. Once that’s done, you can eat the meat with a rice dish (try Arroz a la Mexicana, for example, on page 517), or use it as a filling for tacos. Ideally, you’d use wild mushrooms here—I once made it with chanterelles, and the combination was magical—but fresh shiitakes are also great. Other cuts of meat you can use here: short ribs (which will also take a long time); chunks of lamb or pork shoulder (which will be faster) or beef chuck or brisket; bone-in chicken parts (which will be much quicker), preferably thighs.

In their simplest form, quesadillas are warm corn tortillas encasing spicy melted cheese, but the basic construction simply begs to be built upon. See the variations and keep in mind that the possibilities are endless—take advantage of what you have in the refrigerator or garden. Fresh corn tortillas are best, but flour ones are acceptable. You may dry-sauté the quesadillas, with no oil, in a nonstick or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.

For those who don’t speak Tex-Mex, chile gravy is a smooth sauce made with reconstituted dried chiles, broth, flour or some other thickener, and fat. The canned version—enchilada sauce—is stacked in grocery aisles all over the country. It’s worth the effort to make homemade, though, because fresh chile gravy is about as far from the canned stuff as Texas is from Toronto. I serve my cheese enchiladas topped with gravy, diced yellow or sweet onions, and sides of refried beans (page 161) and Rosa’s Mexican Rice (page 161).

Editor's note: Chef Roberto Santibañez, the chef/owner of Fonda in Brooklyn, New York shared this recipe as part of a festive taco party menu he created for Epicurious. To make tacos, you'll also need 24 to 32 warm corn tortillas, 2 cups of salsa, chopped white onion, chopped cilantro, and lime wedges. Santibañez recommends serving the tacos with Fresh Tomato Salsa , Roasted Pineapple Salsa , or Taco-Shop Guacamole, a blend of avocado and tomatillos. This heavenly steak is the kind of treat you'd get in tacos at the little stands in Mexican markets, tucked into warm tortillas and topped with spicy salsa. I love the beefy flavor, the chew, and the low price of skirt steak, but you can use any type of steak you'd like. If it's a thick cut, just sear it in a hot pan, then finish it in an oven preheated to 350°F.

Tortilla soup is all about contrasting textures, but its real success hinges on a fabulous broth—in this case, homemade chicken stock enriched with a cooked purée of chiles, tomatoes, onion, and garlic.

Brisket is commonly used to make corned beef, but I find that it lends itself well to other preparations. And once it's in the oven, you can forget about it for hours—it's that easy to prepare. This brisket with a south-of-the-border kick is one of my very favorites. The meat actually tastes better to me when it sits overnight so all the flavors have more time to marry. It will hold well for a few days. While good reheated the next day, the meat served cold in a sandwich is a delicious alternative to leftovers. I serve the brisket alone or alongside a grilled steak, as it emphasizes steak's meaty flavor.

Use this classic Mexican mole sauce to marinate the Mole-Roasted Turkey with Masa Stuffing and Chile Gravy . You'll be left with plenty of extra, which can be served alongside the turkey or frozen for later use. (Try it on turkey sandwiches, roasted chicken, or as a sauce for turkey or chicken tamales.)

The flavors of Mexico enliven this very adaptable spice paste, which is excellent on grilled beef and chicken as well as pork. If you want to make the flavor even more complex, substitute crushed chile de árbol, dried pasilla, or New Mexico chiles for the red-pepper flakes.

The name of this cake derives from the flavors that are reminiscent of the classic mole, an aromatic, delicious chocolaty savory sauce that originated in Pueblo, Mexico. I have always thought that dried chiles were a surprisingly good match for chocolate, and with the addition of canela, cloves, and pumpkin seeds, the full mole flavors emerge. For a shortcut, substitute sectioned grapefruit for the orange caramel.

When buying the dried chile for this recipe, be aware that a pasilla de Oaxaca is not the same as a regular pasilla chile. The former is smoked and has a very distinct flavor.