Bayless Tomatillo-Chipotle with Guajillo, Cascabel, and Arbol

This is something of a follow-up to my recent post about playing around with the Rick Bayless recipe and adding other chiles.

This really did come out pretty nicely. I might want the tomatillos to keep more "zing," so I might not roast them as long, but I could just as easily squeeze in a little lime juice (and will do exactly that later on). I might back down on the cascabel, as well, as the flavors seem to get a little muddied (but it's still mighty good). If anything, that will give me a little more information about any direction I might take.

My biggest mistake was not keeping some of the reserved water overnight to add back in. The salsa tightened up a fair bit overnight. It's very good, but I could ice a cake with it). That said, it would be fantastic for mixing in with some shredded chicken, pork, or beef or for something like a quesadilla. An advantage to this consistency also is that I could easily vacuum seal it for freezing should I want to make a large batch.

The heat is right about the level I was shooting for, what I would call "a crowd pleaser" level.

Here's what I did:

– 12 oz tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and cored

– 1/2 large onion in ~1/2" slices

– 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled

– 40 g guajillos

– 20 g cascabels

– 4 whole arbols

– 1 7 oz. can chipotles in adobo

– ~1/2 tsp kosher salt

Roasted the tomatillos, onion, and garlic for roughly 15 minutes. Toasted the dried chiles, got rid of their stems and seeds, and reconstituted the guajillos and cascabels in just enough water (the arbols went in dry). Peeled the garlic, strained the chiles (reserving some water), and whizzed everything up in the food processor until fairly smooth, adding about 1 tbsp of the reserved water. It was good right out of the gate but even better sitting overnight.

I've rambled on long enough. Does anyone have any thoughts?