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Chili Colorad
Take two chickens; cut up as if to stew; when pretty well done, add a little green parsley and a few onions. Take half pound large pepper pods, remove seeds, and pour on boiling water; steam ten or fifteen minutes; pour off water, and rub them in a sieve until all the juice is out; add the juice to the chicken; let it cook for half an hour; add a little butter, flour and salt. Place a border of rice around the dish before setting on table. This dish may also be made of beef, pork or mutton; it is to be eaten in cold weather, and is a favorite dish with all people on the Pacific coast. -Mrs. Gov. Bradley, Nevada.
An early printed record of what is now called chile colorado, sent to an Ohio compiler from Nevada. The whole dish hinges on the chile pods, and the recipe assumes you know which kind is meant.
- The pods"Large pepper pods" here almost certainly means whole dried red chiles of the mild, thin-fleshed sort — New Mexico, California or guajillo — rather than chile flakes or anything from the hot end of the shelf, though the recipe does not say so. Half a pound is roughly 20 to 25 such pods against two chickens; the sauce should come out deeply red and only gently warm.
- Making the puréeSeed the pods, cover with boiling water, and let them soften 10 to 15 minutes ("steam" here means sit covered in the hot water). Press the pulp through a sieve and discard the tough skins that stay behind. Throwing out the soaking water, as directed, removes some bitterness.
- Do not skip the sieveThe skins of dried chiles largely resist breaking down, and a blender alone can leave the sauce gritty. Either sieve after blending or press through a food mill; this is the step that separates a smooth sauce from a coarse one.
- The chickensStewing chickens of the 1870s and 80s were generally smaller and tougher than today's birds. One 4 to 5 lb chicken, cut into eight pieces, gives about the same meat; it will be "pretty well done" in 35 to 45 minutes of gentle simmering. The original sets no time for this first stage.
- Thickening"A little butter, flour and salt" can be handled as a beurre manié: work equal weights of soft butter and flour together and stir it into the simmering liquid in small pieces. About 1 tablespoon of each will lightly bind the sauce from one chicken.
- Salt timingSalt goes in at the end because dried chiles vary and the reduced sauce concentrates. Taste after the half hour of cooking, not before.
- The rice borderA Victorian presentation: plain boiled rice pressed into a ring around the rim of a deep platter with the chicken and sauce in the middle. Plain long-grain rice, about 2 cups raw, serves the same purpose spooned alongside.
- YieldAs written, with two birds, this feeds 8 to 10. Halved to one chicken it serves 4 to 5.
Chili Colorad appears to be a truncation of the Spanish chile colorado, "red chile" — the name describes the sauce, not a place, and has nothing to do with the state. The dish is the standard red-chile stew of the Hispanic Southwest and northern Mexico, where dried pods, rather than fresh, carried the harvest through winter; the recipe's own note that it "is to be eaten in cold weather" reflects exactly that. What makes its appearance in Buckeye Cookery (a compilation of contributions from housekeepers across the country, first issued at Marysville, Ohio, with later editions printed at Minneapolis) worth noticing is the date: this is chile colorado explained to Midwestern readers in the 1870s and 80s, at a time when the ingredients would have had to be sent for. The contributor is given as Mrs. Gov. Bradley of Nevada, generally identified as the wife of Lewis R. Bradley, the state's governor through that decade — one of many political wives named in the book. Her remark that it is "a favorite dish with all people on the Pacific coast" is her own sweeping claim, but Mexican cooking had already established itself in Nevada and California well before it reached the eastern kitchen.