I dedicate this post to Richard and his Baby Lady, as they did not only inspire me to create this dish, but also taught me the techniques as well as donated the chiles used. And I also think they’d enjoy it. Do you like chiles? Then you will love this dish, because it has three different kinds of chiles in it: ancho, guajillo, and chipotles. Ancho chiles are soaked to make them pliable and then stuffed with a mixture of slow-cooked pork shoulder with guajillo and onions. The stuffed ancho is then baked and finally served with a sauce of chipotle, sourcream, corn tortillas, and guacamole. This turned out to be a really nice dish with many layers of flavor. I cooked the pork sous-vide, but you could also cook it in the oven. Here’s what I did…
Ingredients
For 2 servings
300 grams (.66 lb) pork shoulder
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 Tbsp lard
salt
2 guajillo chiles (or other chiles of your choice, e.g. New Mexico or Pasilla)
2 big acho chiles, or 4 smaller ones
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp oil for greasing the baking dish
2 Tbsp pickled chipotles
1 tsp honey
1 avocado
1 tomato
juice of 1/2 lime
fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp slivered almonds, lightly toasted
sourcream (or Mexican crema if you can find it)
Preparation
Cut the pork into cubes and season with salt.
Brown the pork in the lard over high heat…
…until browned on all sides. Do this quickly to prevent the pork from drying out — the browning is only for flavor development.
Remove the pork from the pan with a strainer.
Sauté the onion in the same pan over medium heat until it is soft and fragrant, 5-10 minutes.
Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.
Deglaze the pan with 60 ml (1/4 cup) of water.
Scrape with a wooden spatula to include all of the browned bits.
Add the meat back to the pan, including the juices that leaked out of it.
Add oregano, coriander, and cumin.
Put the guajillo and ancho chiles in a bowl and cover with boiling water.
Weigh the chiles down with a plate and allow them to soak for 30 minutes.
The chiles should now be soft and pliable.
Remove the stems and seeds from the guajillo chiles.
Put the guajillo chiles in the blender with about 120 ml (1/2 cup) of the soaking water.
Blend until you obtain a smooth puree.
Add the guajillo puree to the pork.
Add the tomato paste as well.
Stir to mix. If cooking sous-vide, allow to cool to room temperature. If cooking in the oven, put in an oven dish, cover with aluminum foil, and cook at 150ºC/300ºF until the meat is tender (start checking after 1 hour).
Vacuum seal once cool, then cook sous-vide for 48 hours at 57ºC/135ºF.
After the meat has been cooked sous-vide, drain and reserve the juices. Taste and adjust the seasoning of the meat with salt.
Carefully remove the seeds and ribs from the soaked ancho chiles. By all means leave in the ribs if you like it hot. Stuff the anchos with the pork mixture and arrange them in an oiled baking dish.
Bake the stuffed ancho chiles in the oven for 20 minutes at 180ºC/350ºF or until heated through. (If you like you could cover them with a nice layer of grated cheese that will melt.)
Put the pickled chipotles (including pickling liquid and condiments) in the blender.
Add the reserved juices from cooking the pork, as well as the honey and 60 ml (1/4 cup) of water.
Blend…
…to obtain a puree. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt. Heat up the chipotle sauce in the microwave.
To make guacamole, puree the avocado with a fork. Add lime juice, salt, and diced tomato, and mix.
Once the anchos are baked, serve them on preheated plates, cover them with the chipotle sauce, guacamole, and corn tortillas. Garnish with the slivered almonds and cilantro.
Flashback
Chicken Cordon Bleu is really good if made from scratch with good chicken (or pork or veal), good ham, and good cheese. It is quite different from something store-bought where the ham, cheese, and chicken are probably all of the ‘processed’ variety.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Very nice! I love all sorts of chilies, but they are really hard to find in France, and outside of Paris it is nearly impossible. A friend of mine from Texas brought me bags of chiles, and I made something similar to this, but now I am out of chiles and can only dream that somebody will give me more, so I can make more of these flavorful dishes!
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You can order them online. Perhaps there is also a shop in France, but otherwise the shop where I order them (if I don’t get them from Richard) is mexworld.nl. They also ship to France.
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Che grande ricetta! Ma questi peperoni ripieni risultano molto piccannti? Io non credo di poter trovare le varietà di peperoncini che citi con facilità, ma vedrò di arrangiarmi, perché li trovo favolosi. Grazie Stefan! Buona domenica.
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Grazie Silva. Se tolga i filamenti per bene, i peperoni ‘ancho’ non sono molto piccanti. Potresti ordinare i peperoni online, per esempio da mexworld.nl.
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Grazie! Ottimo suggerimento. Sai Stefan, io sono un po’ all’antica: faccio la spesa ancora al mercato del mio quartiere… Ma non sempre!
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Preferirei di fare la spesa al mercato vicino, ma purtroppo non ci posso trovare tutto e i prodotti non sono sempre la stessa quality come in Italia. Fare la spesa su internet va benissimo per prodotti come peperoni secchi.
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Stefan you had me at Chiles!! There are not enough words to describe how much I love this dish. I’ve always seen Chile Rellenos stuffed inside a poblano chile but NEVER a dried Ancho!!! Just Brilliant!!
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Thanks, what a nice thing to say. If you like chocolate, you should really try the dessert ancho chile relleno stuffed with chocolate mousse and cherries 🙂
https://stefangourmet.com/2013/10/09/ancho-chile-with-chocolate-mousse-and-amarena-cherries/
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Beautiful relleno, Stefan. Baby Lady and I are always thrilled when you do posts with chiles. You are absolutely correct in that Baby Lady & I would love this in every respect. While I love rellenos with poblano peppers and Anaheim/New Mexico Green Chiles, I love the fruity earthiness of a stuffed ancho chile. The picadillo sounds fabulous as does the sauce. Everything seems in perfect balance.
For your next project, I’m going to find you some Pasilla de Oaxaca chiles. It is a pasilla chile (like the pasilla negro) that is smoke dried like the chipotle. It is used in Oaxaca, Mexico to make the Oaxaca relleno, a rehydrated Pasilla de Oaxaca, stuffed with cheese, battered and pan fried. It is a beautiful dish that I am sure you would like.
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Thanks Richard, I’m glad you like it! The Pasilla de Oaxaca with cheese sounds great, it sounds like something Kees would enjoy as well!
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Wow! I have found an excellent and authentic supplier of chiles in Sydney – shopping is a matter of pointing to what you require!
And now I have this superb recipe to practice using them. Thank you for the inspiration.
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Since I know you are not crazy about spicy stuff, make sure you remove the ribs carefully. Otherwise you may be in a for a surprise…
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A masterclass Stefan. The presentation is both difficult and excellent.
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Awesome dish all the way around! Kudos to Richard and Baby Lady for inspiring you! Chiles in any form just do it!
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Chile relleno is one of my favorite Mexican dishes. This ancho style is a whole different story. I sure would like a bite of it. 🙂
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Very nice! I’ve noticed that you sous-vided your meat together with the marinade. How do you vacuum seal the meat together with liquids? I always have this issue that the vacuum machine pulls not only the air, but also the liquids out of the bag and then cannot seal it, since the edges got wet 😦
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Hi Irene, I have a chamber vacuum sealer, so I don’t have that problem. What you could do is to freeze the liquid. With a marinade that is a bit of a hassle (unless you freeze the meat, too, but I wouldn’t recommend that), but it works.
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