Since moving away from Phoenix, I have suffered from chronic withdrawal from Sonoran style Mexican food. This style is primarily beef, cheese, dried chile and flour tortilla based. The local taco bell and chipotle do nothing for these cravings. For those who live in AZ, I miss restaurants like L&B in Florence and Rosa's in Tempe. There are many restaurants like them, but these are the ones I think of when trying to replicate the food I am used to.





A Mexican woman bought my mom a Sororan style cookbook as a wedding gift decades ago, called Amalia's special mexican dishes. I acquired a copy for a dollar on half.com. It provides the starting point for developing my own recipes. In a red chili with meat, I'm going for a thick dried red pepper based sauce, sufficiently thick that it can be rolled into a burrito and not spill. Blending dried chiles is not sufficient for this, it needs to be thickened with flour or corn starch. I use flour. Anyway, if you like Sonoran style Mexican food, or think this looks good, give it a shot. Yesterday I finally succeeded in making the sauce sufficiently thick. I figured I'd share.





A few caveats; I like really really spicy food. I can eat a fresh ghost pepper whole without major incident. I can eat habaneros like candy. This recipe is not that spicy, and my yankee roommate loved it. However, I tend to use a lot of chipotle peppers that some find too spicy, so sub those out for more anchos if you don't like spicy food.
































































Any chili of this style should be primarily meat and peppers. Below is cubed beef roast. Pork works well too. Sometimes I even use chicken or add hominy.











This is a mix of large mild peppers and chipotle peppers. Chipotle peppers are smoke dried jalapenos, and give the food a smokey almost barbecue flavor. They can be pretty spicy and are somewhat non traditional.











Simmer the peppers in four cups of water until they are pliable/mushy. Should take 5 to 15 minutes.











Blend the peppers. In this picture, you can see little chunks of chipotle peppers. Keep blending until you see no chunks of anything.











In the pot, add 2 tbs of oil and heat on medium. Brown the flour. If you need more oil, add it. It won't hurt anything.











Once the flour is browned, add the chile puree, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the other spices at this time. I regularly use salt, garlic and oregano. I sometimes add cumin and smoked ghost pepper powder.











Brown the meat.











In a crock pot set on low, add the meat and sauce. I prep the chili right before bed and let it stew overnight. Alternatively, you could use a stock pot on low heat. I don't know how long this would take, but it is done when the meat is very tender, almost but not quite falling apart.











As it stews, the sauce will continue to thicken. By morning, it will be very thick. Serve as is, serve on white rice, serve next to beans or some other rice, whatever. It tastes great.







 

Must try.

Thanks for sharing.

Would try...wait, will try

Keep in mind, the sauce is the key. Using beef roast is the most expensive way to do it. You can add whatever meat or filler you have on hand. I have even used Mexican hominy and chicken. Bad/tough/gamey cuts of deer or other game meat are perfect for this.

Thanks for posting. That looks good. I may need to dial back the heat a bit though.

Dear God, it's beautiful!

Thanks op, will use that one... Probably needs some beans though

Good looking Chili....

Looks great!

I do mine similarly except I brown my seasoned (red chile powder, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, cumin) meat on the outside grill. Then, it goes in a crock pot with a Mexican beer to braise for about 4 hours. While it's braising I prep my chiles and spices, make the roux, then simmer it all together for about an hour. I drain the liquid off the meat and save it for the red chile making liquid next time by food-saver bagging and freezing. Then I add the red chile to the meat and let it simmer the rest of the day.

It's always better the next day or so but who can wait?  

I made another batch with the leftover meat I had, and it was just as good. Here is how it is traditionally served in Mexican restaurants in southern Arizona; on a plate. Typically I tear off chunks of a flour tortilla and eat the chili and rice in that.

Yes Onion and a few green chilli and you have texas chilli

I add the masa at the end to cut back on sticking but it has the same effect.

Where are the beans? I don't see any beans?

J/K great job, OP!!!!!

Not bad, but the correct term is carne con chile colorado: Meat flavored by red chile; not chile flavored by meat.

The sauce continues to deliver. I just used six cups of the sauce (two batches) and stewed two boneless chicken breasts and half of a big can of hominy in it over night and then shredded the chicken this morning. I suppose it is sort of a pozole. In reality it is an attempt to take advantage of $2.00 a pound boneless chicken breasts. Tastes pretty good, should create 6-8 meals and cost $2 in chicken, $2 in hominy and at most $2 in peppers.
 

Tag.  This looks amazing!