This Week’s “Plant to Plate”: The Chile

Jalapeño Chile Peppers

“Plant to Plate: Native Plant Foods from the Americas” is a series that introduces you to different plants from the Americas through a brief history, tips for cooking, eating and growing, along with a recipe.

This week’s feature: Chile (Capsicum anuum)

Recipe: Enchiladas with Colorado Chile Sauce

I grew up in Texas eating tex-mex style food. Now, having been in Colorado for three years, I’m fortunate to experience the wonder of Colorado-style cooking and Southwest cuisine using delicious chile peppers from the area. The recipe below features a tex-mex style enchilada dish with a homemade chile sauce using Colorado chiles.

A brief history

A well-known favorite for residents of the Southwest, the brightly colored chile pepper (Capsicum anuum) has a long history in the cuisine of the Americas. With a supposed ancestral home in southern Brazil and independent domestication in several locations in southern and eastern Mexico, the chile is a well-traveled plant. How did chiles travel from Brazil to Mexico, you may ask? In short: bird droppings. Birds lack receptors for capsaicin, the chemical responsible for our sensation of “spiciness,” so they can eat the fruits of the peppers (and distribute their seeds wherever they distribute their droppings).

Domesticated chiles eventually spread north to the American Southwest where local people including Navajo, Hopi, and Pima groups, adapted them for use in both food and medicine.  With the European invasion of the Americas beginning in the 1500s, chile peppers quickly spread to other continents around the world, and now have become vital ingredients for local cuisine in Hungary, Thailand, and India.

Chile pepper plant

Growing

Plant your own chile peppers in well drained, nitrogen-rich soils. They do well in Colorado’s persistent sun, but protect them from the wind and cold by planting them late in the spring or using mulch or water walls as insulation.

 Cooking and Eating

Chile peppers are often dried and strung together in decorative arrangements called ristras and can be seen all over the American Southwest region. I got my supply of dried chile peppers from Rachel Murray (also my squash blossom supplier) who had a ristra of dried red and brown chiles from last year’s Sacred Earth Garden. These chiles were of different size, shape, and color and were of varying degrees of spiciness. Because I was not quite sure how hot or spicy the sauce would be, I was careful to add the chiles only a few at a time to the food processer (tasting the sauce in between) to prevent having a surprisingly hot sauce in the end. Lastly, sautéing the dried peppers before soaking them in water gave the sauce a subtle but delicious smoked flavor.

Enchiladas with Colorado Chile Sauce

[Chile sauce adapted from Pepperfool recipe]

Chile Sauce Ingredients:

4-5 chile peppers (depending on spiciness)

3 cups water

1 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

cumin

oregano

2-3 tomatoes (depending on consistency)

Chile Sauce Directions: Prepare the dried peppers by rinsing and removing the cores, tops, and seeds. Briefly sauté the dried peppers on a skillet for a few minutes, or until they have become slightly browned on each side. Boil the water in a large sauce pan, add the peppers, then lower the heat down to a simmer soaking the peppers for about an hour. Next, blend the water and peppers in a food processor for a minute or two along with spices, onion, garlic and tomatoes until it has reached a consistency of your liking (liquid). When it has been thoroughly blended, return the sauce to a sauce pan and simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes to let the flavors blend. If you have a strainer, you can strain out the chunky materials. However, I did not do this and the sauce tasted great.

Enchiladas Ingredients:

1 Dozen corn tortillas

3-4 cups shredded cheese (cheddar or other cheese of your liking)

*optional* 1 cup shredded chicken

Enchiladas Directions: Heat 1 tortilla on a skillet for a minute on each side, or until it becomes flexible (so that it will not tear when you roll it). Dip heated tortilla in enchilada chile sauce so that it is lightly covered on all surfaces. Lay tortilla flat in casserole dish and line shredded cheese along the center of the tortilla, then roll into a tube. Repeat this process with each tortilla.  You have the option of adding chicken inside the tortillas with the cheese for chicken enchiladas. When the entire casserole dish is full of these filled and rolled tortillas, pour the chile sauce in the dish, covering the tortillas at least half-way. Sprinkle entire dish with shredded cheese and remainder of the chile sauce and cover with a oven-safe top or aluminum foil. Place in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted. Enjoy with a light salad or rice and beans.

Sources:

Aegerter, Steve. “Growing Peppers is Fun, Easy, and Addicting.” Colorado State University Cooperative Extension. 5 Jan 210.

American Journal of Botany. “Domestication Of Chile Pepper Provides Insights Into Crop Origin And Evolution.” ScienceDaily. 9 July 2009.

DeWitt, Dave, and Paul W. Bosland. The Complete Chile Pepper Book: A Gardener’s Guide to Choosing, Growing, Preserving, and Cooking. Portland: Timber Press, 2009.