Smokey Mountain Chiles, (sorry for the length)

DTM

<p />Smokey Mountain Chiles
4 lg ancho, pasilla, or new mexico dried chiles, perfect ones w/out holes or tears
2-4 moritas or chipotles
1 whole head of garlic
1 T oil
2 baker spuds
1/2 med onion sliced thin
1 can chicken broth
1/2 broth can white vinegar
1/2 t oregano
2 T brown sugar
s & p
1 can sardines packed in oil (I use generic that says lightly smoked)
2 T butter
cream
Grated cheese, Monterrey jack mixed w/ some romano. Better yet some Oaxacan if you can get it.[p]Put a dry skillet on med high.
Start your fire.
Rinse and dry chiles
Cut the top off of a head of garlic. Nest in foil. Pour on 1 T oil & salt. Mash foil closed.
Oil and garlic salt spuds.
Toast chiles in skillet until aromatic. 15-30 secs/side. Don't burn.
Cut a slit down the side of the big chilies, seed and de-vein carefully but leave stem intact. Poke a couple of holes in the sm chiles.
Toss chiles, onion, chicken broth, vinegar, salt, oregano, and brown sugar in a smoker safe dish.
Put a bunch of wood on coals. You want a lot of smoke. Mesquite is OK
Place chili dish, foiled garlic, and spuds in cooker. I do indirect @ 300.
Turn spuds, move garlic packet around, gently stir chiles, all as needed.
Cook until spuds are soft, chiles are soft but not falling apart, and garlic is roasted. Maybe 30 min for chiles, 40 min for spuds, and 1 hr for garlic, but watch and feel when done. Carefully remove and drain chiles. Put big chiles on a plate to cool and de-stem little chiles & set aside.
Squeeze out 4-6 cloves of roasted garlic into a big bowl.
Add 1/2 the sardines and smash up.
Finely chop 1-2 of the sm hot chiles and add to bowl.
Rough chop spuds, peel and all. Add to bowl.
Add butter and cream and mash to rough texture.
Stir in a little less than an equal volume of the grated cheese.
Taste. s & p. Add more sardines, hot chiles or whatever.
Carefully stuff large chiles w/ potato mix and reform to original shape.
At this step you may be able to peel off the somewhat tough skin. It comes off kind of like a thin plastic wrap material, but don't tear up the chiles. If it doesn't come off easily leave it on.
Cover with more of the grated cheese. Put in a pan and return to cooker to melt cheese and heat through.
Meanwhile put the broth mixture the chiles were softened in and the remaining 1-2 sm chilies into a blender and blend until smooth. Strain into a pan and simmer until it's a little thicker. Remove from heat and stir in about half the volume of cream. When the cheese has melted on the chiles, plate, sauce, and serve with Saltillo relish and chorizo tostados.[p]Saltillo Relish
2 lg carrots, peeled and cut into 2" x 1/4" sticks
4 lg jalapenos cut into the same size sticks. I de-stem but leave the seeds and veins in.
2 T oil
1/4 c cider vinegar
s & p[p]Heat oil in a skillet until almost smoking. Crank the vent fan to max and open a window. Stir fry carrots and chiles in hot oil 3-5 min. Add vinegar. Turn down the heat a little and boil off the vinegar. You want the veggies just crunchy. s & p and put in serving bowl.[p]Chorizo Tostados
4 large flour tortillas
1 lb fresh Mexican chorizo
Grated cheese, same mix as for stuffed chiles.
Heat oven to 425. Crumble chorizo into a skillet and cook over low heat until fat renders. Cook slowly as it can burn easily. Lightly Pam a big baking sheet. Put tortillas on sheet. Divide the chorizo and spread evenly, same with the cheese. Bake 5-10 min until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is crisp. Cut in wedges and serve.
DTM

Wise One

DTM, that looks like a lot of work and I'm not sure for what. Could you add a paragraph describing how they taste or when you do these or what people thought when they tried them? Maybe an idea of how they look when cooked would help. Are they the things in the vacuum packed bag?

DTM

Wise One,
First I need an editor. It's chipotle not cipotle.
They have a very rich, creamy, smokey taste. I made 20 of them for a six person dinner and had the 3 left over in the vacuum bag so except for 1 person all had 3 each. 1 hr and 20 minutes after I started my coals I served dinner. The explaination is more difficult than the preparation. I only used one 10" saute pan, 2 baking sheets, and 1 mixing bowl for preping all 3 dishes. I have been working on this with the misguided "I don't eat red meat" guest in mind.
DTM [p]

Wise One

DTM, that makes it more enticing. I will send an address that you can send the vacuum-packed three remainders to.
:-)