Carne con Chile Rojo (Chuck Braised in Chile)

Recipe from Claudia Serrato

Adapted by Tejal Rao

Carne con Chile Rojo (Chuck Braised in Chile)
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
4½ hours
Rating
4(193)
Notes
Read community notes

Claudia Serrato’s work studying the history of indigenous Mexican foodways informs her annual holiday tamaladas, where family and friends in her community gather to fill tamales with cacao, vegetables, flowers or bison braised in red chile. The meat is first braised until very tender, then dressed in a purée of smoky chiles and garlic, before it’s stuffed into fresh masa. Ms. Serrato makes her own nixtamal with blue corn, soaking it with cal and grinding it in her outdoor kitchen, though you can buy fresh masa or hydrate freshly ground nixtamal if you prefer. —Tejal Rao

Featured in: It’s Peak Season for Tamales in Los Angeles

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Ingredients

Yield:Serves 4 to 6 (about 4 cups)

    For the Braised Bison

    • 2tablespoons maple or raw sugar
    • 1tablespoon coarse sea salt
    • 2pounds boneless bison or beef chuck roast
    • ¼cup olive oil
    • 4cups vegetable broth
    • 2ripe tomatoes
    • ½medium white onion
    • 10dried California or New Mexico chiles (2½ ounces)
    • 2fresh sage sprigs
    • 2fresh or dried bay leaves
    • ½cup pure maple syrup

    For the Chile Rojo

    • 10dried guajillo chiles, stemmed
    • 4dried chiles de árbol, stemmed
    • 2garlic cloves, peeled
    • ¼medium white onion
    • 1teaspoon coarse sea salt, plus more to taste
    • 2tablespoons olive oil
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

432 calories; 22 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 14 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 27 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 22 grams sugars; 33 grams protein; 969 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    To make the bison: Heat oven to 275 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    Sprinkle the sugar and salt all over the roast. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat. Add the roast and sear until dark brown on all sides, 7 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate and reduce the heat to medium. Carefully add 1 cup broth (the hot fat will spatter) and scrape up all the browned bits from the pan. Return the roast and any accumulated juices to the Dutch oven and add the tomatoes, onion, chiles, sage, bay leaves, syrup and remaining 3 cups broth. Bring to a boil, then cover and transfer to the center of the oven.

  3. Step 3

    Braise until the meat is very tender, about 3½ hours. A fork should slide through easily. Uncover and cool for 15 minutes, then transfer the roast to a large bowl. Finely shred the meat using your hands if cool enough to handle or with two forks. Strain the cooking liquid and reserve.

  4. Step 4

    To make the chile rojo: Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add all of the dried chiles, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer steadily until softened and lighter in color, about 10 minutes. Transfer the chiles to a blender, along with the garlic, onion, salt and 2 cups of the braising liquid. Save any remaining braising liquid for another use (see Tip). Blend until very smooth.

  5. Step 5

    Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet over high heat until shimmering. Carefully add the chile sauce (it will splatter) and immediately reduce the heat to medium. Simmer, stirring often, until thickened and brick red, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the shredded meat and any accumulated juices and stir to evenly coat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Serve immediately or cool to room temperature to use as a filling for tamales. The sauced braised meat can be refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

Tip

Ratings

4 out of 5
193 user ratings
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Private Notes

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Cooking Notes

Randall Huskinson

Amy tips for making a no-sugar version of this? I eat keto so the brown sugar and maple syrup are non-starters. I’ll likely try it with monkfruit sweetener or xylitol but really don’t want to risk wasting a whole roast on the experiment.

Donna

Delicious! I seeded all peppers.

Liz

Looks like the sugar is just there to aid caramelization in the browning stage. I'd just skip it.

Diane

I would not let all those Beautiful Braised with the meat peppers go to waste. I would use 5 California or New Mexico and 5 Guajillo to braise the meat, then tong them out and strain the braising liquid to create the CHILE ROJO. Using the meat braise jus and the slow cooked peppers from the meat braise, will intensify the flavour of the Rojo. Save your peppers! For Randall, who has the Q about sugar. Use your sweetener of preference. Should work just fine. Sweetness is important to the dish.

Cynthia

I learned to make Christmas tamales and chili for tamales when I was a new bride in 1972 in Arizona. Never have I used any sweetener, nor did I ever see any sweetener added long ago at numerous tamaladas. No one I know uses a sweetener. I'd advise to prepare without. Just be concerned about adequate moisture. I was taught to use the braising liquid to give the filling some moisture.

Kay

I wonder about the direction to throw the chiles into the blender with the skins on. I learned decades ago while living in southern California to soak chiles in hot water, then split them, throwing away the stems and seeds, then scraping the pulp from the skins and discarding the skins. The skins are bitter.

Genevieve

You can seed the chiles if you want for a mild sauce. Even with the seeds, this doesn't end up very spicy at all.

Suzinsf

For the Keto cook: try Allulose sweetener. It is a natural sweetener with nearly zero carbs, and doesn't have the bitterness of monk fruit or the cooling effect of Xylitol.

Linda

I also have type 2 diabetes. And coconut sugar is still sugar. It spikes my blood sugar too much to use it. So, no, this advice doesn't work for me. I noted what I use in a separate post. I also use allulose and Bocha Sweet for some recipes where they work better than Swerve/stevia blends.

Cora

Wow. I have NEVER made chile with sugar in it. Perhaps my Mexican branch that came to Northern Arizona/New Mexico in the 19th Century focused more on the heat than the sweet. So if anyone is worried about making this without sugar, my experience has been that you don't need it.

Cora

Yeah, we used to use something like a coffee mill ("molino") to separate the skin. But if your blender is good enough to really pulverize the softened chiles AND you remove the seeds, you shouldn't have a problem with bitterness.

RJ Bizzle

No sugar is easy for me. I avoid added sugars and salt, using a minimum, if truly needed. Some cumin and a little more fresh ground peppers will help.

Cynthia

PS No tomatoes were added. Unnecessary. Many Arizonans cook Sonoran style "mexican" food. No tomatoes in enchilada sauce either. :)

Chuy C

I have used coconut sugar in many savory recipes that call for real sugar; as a type II diabetic, it has a much less significant impact on blood sugar levels which allows you to enjoy many foods you probably swore off due to the disease. Coconut sugar is Paleo friendly and helps your recipes achieve the desired flavor profile, but might throw off your Ketosis if you're a strict adherent to a Keto diet. Monk fruit and other zero-calorie sweeteners can drastically alter the flavor of a good recipe

Cynthia

For 49 years I've thrown the chilis in the blender and then put the result through a food mill which caught the skins. I remove seeds when washing the chilis at the beginning of the process.

Daisy in SOCAL

I am somewhat confused - make your own nixtamal but then add almost 3/4 of a cup of maple syrup and maple sugar?

Delicious! Hold the sugar and syrup

Made it for tamales—I cut the sugar and the syrup completely and subbed a can of fire roasted tomatoes for the fresh tomatoes. Definitely making again for tacos, or bowls. It is delicious!

Judith

Thanks to the good advice from fellow Sonoran cooks, I left out the sugar and the maple syrup, went light with two tomatoes from a can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted whole tomatoes (cut in half), and ended up with a braise as good as any I've had in Tucson! Really happy with how it came out and hope the sauce is as stellar. Hoping to make Red Chili Tamales for Christmas with this.

Melissa

I omit the sugar, it makes a huge mess when searing the meat. This is a great recipe I make often!

Nicole Walker

Didn't use sugar on roast and just a touch of maple syrup. Made the sauce from the braising liquid.

Melissa

I’ve made this 4 or 5 times this year and it’s always excellent. I’ve tried it with and without the sugar, and it doesn’t make a noticeable difference. Just make sure you get a nice sear on the meat and skip the sugar. I serve this with rice & pinto beans and a veggie. Tonight we had it with okra.

Will

Many people would say that one should toast the dried chiles in a unreleased skillet or coral first. The garlic, too.

Matt

Loved this! It’s a long cook time but worth the wait. Great in a burrito and with eggs the next morning.

Ben

OK. That was a disappointment. I strongly recommend to anyone making this: forgo the sugar and the maple syrup. It was borderline disgusting. Very disappointed after spending most of the afternoon in and out of the kitchen ruining two pounds of chuck. Those two ingredients were against my better judgment, but I was taking the author at his word to follow the recipe as exactly as possible. Also: the chilis should be put through a food mill or pressed through a sieve to remove the skins.

Ann

I combined Diane and Kay's advice - split the cooked chiles and scraped the pulp out, including the chiles from the braise and the onions too. An easy prep for so much flavor - delicious!

Lisa

I followed the recipe exactly and it tastes absolutely delicious! There is enough tasty leftover braising liquid to use in other dishes.

John

I go to a local Mexican grocery and can get many kinds of dried chilis but I don't think I have ever seen California or New Mexico chilis. As I understand it, California is a dried red fresno, and both it and New Mexico chilis are quite mild. I'm going to try and substitute Anchos for them, but before I do, I would love to hear here from anyone else who's made this substitution and their findings. Thanks!

another home cook

This was delicious. Also very smoky-spicy. I ended up using chicken broth instead of vegetable stock (because my veggie stock came out super bitter, sigh) and I cannot imagine it made a difference.

Rimalovski

Wow! This was so good. Followed the recipe as written, though we didn't have all the peppers for the Chile Rojo sauce so had to improvise with a little chili powder and hot sauce, but this was amazing! Deliciously deep combination of spicy, salty, sweet and meaty flavors. Served it in a bowl over some masa harina porridge. So good! Will definitely make again.

Randall Huskinson

Reporting back: Made it yesterday, delicious! To meet my keto lifestyle, I used monk fruit sugar and monk fruit maple syrup, and it turned out great. I reduced the quantities of those sweeteners as I find them sweeter than sugar. Also, thank god I googled the pepper types before cooking. My husband has little tolerance for spicy, so I left out the arbol chiles. Smart choice for us. The guajillos still provided a lovely, balanced warmth. Served atop salad. Yum.

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Credits

Adapted from Claudia Serrato

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