Help spicing up a recipe

[ketherian]

Hi - long time lurker, first time poster.
Last night I made up Southwestern Steak, Corn, and Black Bean Wraps (from the July 2005 issue of Cooking Light magazine, p210 by Barbara Seelig Brown Magazine or registration required).

The fajitas/wraps are filled with:

• lime juice
• cumin
• red onion
• black pepper
• corn

Comments

[antimony]

Get a little can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (that might be misspelled). They're spicy and very smoky, so if you don't like smoky, ignore this. Chop them up and mix up the chopped bits with some more of the sauce that comes with them, and put a few in each fajita. It's gloopy, like salsa, but you're using much, much less because the flavor is so concentrated. They're not super-spicy -- if you want hotter, just add a dash of habanero sauce or something for pure heat.

[ketherian]

Thanks for the advice antimony, I'll have to try it when I can. Unfortunately (living in Canada) I can't get chipotle peppers (canned in adobo sauce, or otherwise) here. I do occasionally get a can of the stuff from friends who shop in the US, but not regularly.

[nantena]

Really? Try going to the farmers market. I live in Toronto and previously in Kingston (small town, yay) and was able to find them, usually dried, in asian and farmers markets.

[ketherian]

Hi.
I guess I'm just not lucky. I've searched through Chinatown with no luck (I'm in Montreal). I've seen them (very rarely) in a few ethnic grocers as a pile of dried chilies -- but never canned. Your luck of finding them in Toronto gives me hope. :) I'll keep looking.

[ketherian]

Hi Neokibo.

Mrs Dash has a Chipote blend? Wow. Thanks for the great news. I'll definitely keep my eye out for this one. But, living where I do, I doubt I'll find it quickly. Most US distributors treat my neck of the woods as a test market - so products appear here for a short time, never to be seen again.

Ah well, if I can't find it -- then I'll just have to do some good old-fashioned cross-border shopping. :)

[furrysnake]

mmm, i bought a bottle of that chipotle tabasco sauce just over a week ago and its nearly all gone! that stuff is damn good

[seattlejo]

For those who don't have a surbscription, the password this month is tomato

[kastinkerbell]

You could use fresh chiles with all the insides cleaned out (the seeds and membranes) because that is where all the heat is stored. That would add the flavor but not the heat of the chiles (jalapeno, for instance). Roasting and peeling them would also be tasty and add a smoky flavor (but it's more difficult to get all the guts out after you do that).

What about finding some fajita seasoning to put on the steak as a dry rub before you grill it? That will also add a lot of flavor. There are some very nice spice blends available.

[ketherian]

Hi Kastinkerbell.
I'd not thought of actually removing the seeds from the chilies before adding them. Great idea. Hrm... roasting my own chilis. Do you think they'd freeze well?

We use a salt-less steak spice (and sometimes rosemary) on most of the steaks that we grill. I'll be trying that combination later in the week.

Freeze...

[lsanderson]

Chilies freeze very well, either fresh and whole, or peeled and seeded. I'd guess you'd want to keep them well sealed if you peeled and seeded 'em first. You do, of course, lose the texture.

Re: Freeze...

[ketherian]

Hi Isanderson.
Thanks for the quick reply. When the weather's cooler I'll definitely try seeding and frying up a batch of chilies for the freezer. A close family member likes to pack them in vinegar (seeds and all), but they get very hot, very fast.

[wickenden]

If you don't want it too picanté, you could remove the seeds from some serranos and then chop them up and add them.

d.