January 1, 2013 Dinner - Beef in a Pasilla Chile Sauce

January 1, 2013 Dinner - Beef in a Pasilla Chile Sauce

We woke up and I decided that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to try recipes from some of the cookbooks of Mother’s that I have never opened. I started with an appealing one by Julia Child published in 1993 which was the companion volume to the T.V. show she produced to introduce the cooking of 16 of America’s best chefs.  Since that was probably the high water mark for New American regional cuisines, I found lots of interesting recipes, but the one I was most attracted to was Beef in a Pasilla Chile Sauce by Robert Del Grande of Café Annie in Houston, because it utilized the PPI chopped tomatoes we had from Christmas and we had all the other ingredients, if we substituted a rib steak for the tenderloin the recipe called for and I could find the jar of pasilla chiles I had not opened in fifteen years.

We started looking for the jar of pasillas.  After taking out most of the herbs on the top shelf of the three shelf spice cabinet next to the stove without finding the pasillas, we decided it was good idea to re-organize our spices and clean up the heavily soiled shelves, so we did that and got rid of lots of old discolored hot sauces gifted to me at the early Fiery Food shows almost twenty years ago and a truly ugly bottle of curry powder in oil that I had bought in Sweden 44 years ago.  We also labeled all the spices and then divided the bottles and spices into three regional food categories, Asia (Chinese, Indian and Middle East), Mexican, and European/American.

For breakfast we decided to make French toast so I could use my new immersion mixer and to get rid of the last liquid in a bottle of vanilla.  One of the things I always on the lookout when I travel to Mexico is real vanilla (it is the seed pod of the flat leaf vanilla orchid that grows in the tropical regions and is indigenous to the jungles in the Mayan area).  Then I thawed out a large 1 ½ lb. rib steak.

Finally, after a lot of football watching and a visit with Richard Donfro and Rosemarie Hirning, at 5:00 p.m. we started on dinner.  Suzette made dinner with a little help from me.  She cooked 3/4 cup of PPI chopped onions, the remaining 64 oz. of PPI chopped tomatoes, 2 ½ Tbsp. of the prepared pasilla chiles and 3 cloves of garlic and a handful of fresh chopped cilantro into a sauce.  Suzette also cubed two avocados into 1/3 inch cubes and chopped ½ cup of onion.  I chopped the onion more finely and added it to the avocado with a finely minced ½ red bell pepper, then Suzette squeezed two small Mexican limes into the avocado relish mixture and I added about 2 Tbsp. of chopped fresh cilantro.  

Suzette seared the steak in a large cast iron skillet and put it aside.  I cut the steak into three individual pieces and when the sauce was finished and Suzette put the steak pieces back into the sauce and spooned the sauce over the steaks and cooked them together for another ten minutes until the steaks were cooked to medium rare and the sauce had thickened a bit, while I chopped up and crumbled 2-3 Tbsp. of cojita cheese and a bit more fresh cilantro for garnish the steaks and de-stemmed some green beans and blanched them and then sautéed them in butter.

We heated Suzette’s Christmas PPI squash/celeriac and potato casserole and I fetched a bottle of Marisol 2004 Carménère Reserve from the Colchagua Valley of Chile (a Sidney Frank selection) from the basement that had a dark fruity cast and earthy Chilean terroir that is so different from French wines.  Suzette and Willy thought the dish may have been better with a beer.   

Bon Appètit