Making Chili Powder - January 9, 2020 @goldenoakfarm

Ingredients for chili powder

I had run out of chili powder. We don’t use it a lot and don’t like really spicy foods. But we have several recipes that call for small amounts.

My helper friend, who was here on Thursday, calls himself a “pepperhead”. He loves really hot stuff and growing the hottest peppers he can find. So I consulted him on some milder types and he suggested Anchos and Guajillos for my powder.

He had a site here that he suggested we use for the recipe.

We’d be using the top recipe with substitutions. For the 4 anchos and 4 piquins we used 2 anchos and 2 guajillos. He also added 1 teaspoon sea salt. He said the middle recipe would be just enough for making a large recipe of chili, and the bottom recipe was a hot one.

He seeded, took the stems off, and cut away the membranes inside each pod. That’s where the heat comes from.

Prepared pods

Then he heated my cast iron grill on high heat and started toasting each chile until they puffed up and started to darken, just a few seconds on each side.

Anchos done, guajillos next

Using my coffee grinder instead of the blender, he tore the pods into 1” pieces and mixed them into the top. They didn’t all fit, so he ground what did, and added the rest later.

The reason he used the coffee grinder was it makes larger particles and you don’t get the fine dust flying around, like you do with the blender. With my respiratory issues, this is a plus, and also why he is making the powder while I kept my distance.

Once the chiles were ground he added all the other ingredients and mixed them thoroughly.

The cool thing was the recipe made just enough to fill my spice cabinet jar.

We’d planned to make the Sticky Chicken recipe on Thursday and now we had the chili powder to do it. So Sticky Chicken was his next job, getting it going in the crockpot and that was our supper.