Recipe Contest on Marxfood.com

Hey all, please check out the contest on Marxfoods. Would appreciate your vote for the Aji Limo Rojo Chile & Cola Sous Vide Carnitas from Gastronomic Guesswork. Thanks! And also, please check out Marxfoods.com for great foodie finds!

Chile Tasting from Marx Foods

If you are a serious foodie, you simply must bookmark Marx Foods - the vast array of great ingredients to be had is mind boggling. Recently, Justin Marx provide me with the opportunity to sample what seemed like a bushel of varied chiles, many of which I had never even heard of before - a feat really given my propensity for cooking with diverse types of chiles. While excited by the prospect of sampling all these chiles, I was met with the fundamental difficulty of finding a way to systematical make my way through tasting each of these without scorching my palate beyond sensation.

I decided a chile tasting was in order, but how the heck to conduct one would prove challenging. After consulting various foodies on Twitter and through email, I was provided with ideas like sour cream as a palate cleanser - a start, but deeper consideration of the problem was needed. The chiles ran the gamut from mild to EXTREMELY hot, including what might prove to be my nemesis - the Bhut Jolokia; how could we sample the Bhut Jolokia, weighing in at 1 million+ scoville units? In researching the scoville system for measuring chile heat, I discovered that the numeric system was based upon perceptability of heat with different levels of dilution. More precisely, 1 million scoville means that it takes 1 million drops of water to render the heat of the chile unperceptable. I was struck that dilution in chicken broth might be a good way to deal with the high end heat monsters, while still allowing the flavor of the chile to come through. After a little more thought, and grabbing a chile-head friend to help me sample, I had settle upon a format.

For the chile tasting we would sample from mild to extremely hot in ascending scoville order, or at least that was the plan. I put together a spreadsheet of foodstuffs which might work for developing flavor pairings from the chile tasting, as well as target cleansers for varying scoville heat levels. You are welcome to share / edit this spreadsheet for your own chile tastings, let me know what you discover in your trials.

Here is a view on the ingredients we used to taste with these excellent chiles from Marx Foods..


Here are the tasting notes from the first, and hopefully not the last, Gastronomic Guesswork Chile Tasting...

Chile: Aji Limo Rojo
Flavors: Apple, Green Onion, Pear
Heat: moderate
Desirability: 4.5 of 5 (amazing)
Pairing Ideas: Carnitas (see here)

Chile: Tepin
Flavors: Bitter, Sour, Zesty, Astringent, Like Zest
Heat: On tip and back of tongue, late attack
Desirability: 3 of 5 (very good)

Chile: Aji Panca
Flavors: Cherrie, Raisin, Dusty
Heat: mild, easily overwhelmed by fat
Desirability: 4.5 of 5 (amazing)
Pairing Ideas: Lamb, Chicken

Chile: Puya
Flavors: Orange, Sage, Sunflower Seeds
Heat: mild to medium
Desirability: 3 (very good)
Pairing Ideas: Moraccan, Greek, Dumplings, Preserved Lemon, Olives

Chile: Smoked Serrano
Flavors: Smoke, Green Herbs, Extremely nice nose
Heat: nasty, not habanero, but very assertive and fairly persistent
Desirability: 2 (good, the nose was a 4)
Pairing Ideas: Soups, Carrot Soup (see here)

Chile: Chipotle
Flavors: Caramel, Smoke
Heat: healthy, not fierce
Desirability: 4 (excellent)

Chile: Aji Amarillo
Flavors: Sweet, Tropical Fruit, Guava, Lemon
Heat: Assertive, not persistent
Desirability: 4-4.5 (excellent - amazing)

Chile: Aji Cereza
Flavors: Fig, Pepper, Cassis
Heat: Ouch
Desirability: 4.5 (excellent)
Pairing Ideas: tomatillo, salsa, braised pork belly, quail

Chile: Bhut Jolokia
Flavors: sweetness against salt, makes meat sweeter
Heat: only tasted diluted broth with a dropper, incredibly hot
Desirability: 2-2.5 (good)
Pairing Ideas: providing base heat in a meat dish in combination with another chile; hospital visit possible if eaten whole

My chile compatriot Chris and I concluded the evenings festivites by making dinner ...

From gastronomic guesswork

We used the Bhut Jolokia in some chicken broth to braised a pork loin. The Aji Cereza was used in a tomatillo salsa with orange juice and roasted garlic. Pictured above is two versions of tacos: the foreground has the tomatillo and Aji Cereza salsa, the background has cointreu romesco (just add 2 oz of cointreu to the original romesco sauce during reduction). Thanks again to Justin at Marx Foods, sensational chiles, here is the complete list of their chile selection.

Cola, Coriander & Lampong Sous Vide Carnitas with Aji Limo Rojo

What this dish lacks in finesse of presentation it makes up for in flavor. Wow - is this one ever an instant personal classic. The concept was to use sous vide as a technique for carefully controlling the slow cooking required of carnitas while imparting deep seasoned taste. The sous vide medium was 4 cans of 365 cola (cane sugar not HFCS), 2 tablespoons coriander seeds (toasted & put through the mortar & pestle), 1 teaspoon toasted cumen (ground), 2 tablespoons Lampong Peppercorns (ground), 1 tablespoon kosher salt, 6 stalks celery (chopped), 2 yellow onions (chopped), and 4 Aji Limo Rojo chiles from Marx Foods. After sealing the pork butt and the braising elements in a vacuum sealed bag, the bag was placed into a large pot of 145F water for 5 hours.

From gastronomic guesswork

Next, the braising liquid was separated from the roast, reduced by half, blitzed with a stick blender, then strained through a chinois. The roast was coated in duck fat and caramelized briefly in a 450F oven (~10-15 minutes), rotating to brown each side. The roast was then returned to the reduced braising liquid and allowed to steep at 200F for 40 minutes longer.

From gastronomic guesswork

The carnitas topped some grilled ciabatta, were doused with some of the braising liquid to form an open faced sandwich, and accompanied by some thinly sliced avocado. Total creature comfort food here, the flavor of the cola melded well with the toasted coriander. the Lampong pepper left a little heat in the back of the mouth, the fruitiness of the Aji Limo Rojo rounded out the coriander and cumin - addictive. Thanks to Marx Foods for the sample chiles, truly a great ingredient, one of the most complex and interesting chiles I've ever tasted.

Slow Grilled Ribeye with Scallions, Great Divide Hoss Rye Lager

Perfection is the enemy of done, and while I can be very particular about food and cooking techniques, sometimes a little minimalism is in order. After a very hectic week, steak, opening night hockey, and a great beer provided a bit of venial indulgence.

The ribeye was topped with organic butter, sea salt, and mortared tellicherry peppercorns, then grilled at 400F for 15 minutes. The steak was removed from the heat, the grilled raised to 550F and I finished the steak for 3 minutes a side. This preparation made the steak increadibly moist and just really beefy, made me think about how they grill steak in Italy as seen in an episode of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie about an eminent butcher and griller named Dario.

From gastronomic guesswork

The beer was Hoss Rye Lager from Great Divide, the bronze medal winner from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). It's an assertive, earthy & crisp beer that is not heavy, but stands up to strong flavors. Perfect with a steak - 92 pts.

Ciao for now summer fare, fall air and hockey are upon us ... and the harvest again yields the best season for cooking.