One of the many preparations you need in your kitchen to cook mexican food is an adobo. There are many variations and creativity is the key. Here I show you a quick simple adobo recipe you can use in pretty much all your food.
Adobos are the pillar of mexican food, they can be used to marinate meats or to make salsas. If you know mole, you can think of adobos as the simpler version of it. Surely you can find plenty of recipes online and dishes in restaurants that contain the name “adobado”. This means that the main ingredient was cooked with adobo for example pollo adobado (chicken) or carne adobada but you can marinate pretty much everything with an adobo. Furthermore you can add a bit of this preparation to any salsa, soup or stew to give it a punch of spicy and a deep red color.
Here is a recipe for a simple adobo. Remember that cooking does not require hyper-precise measurements – you can always adjust quantities to your own taste.
Guajillo Chilis Adobo
Equipment
- 1 Gloves to protect from chile burn but this ones are not that wild.
- 1 Scissors to open the chiles
- 1 Blender, Food Processor or Molcajete to grind all
- 1 Pan or griddle for the tatemado
- 1 Storage container with lid to store your adobo
Ingredients
- 7 pieces Guajillo Chiles they are usually quite similar in size, between 15 and 20 cm; if yours are smaller, use a few more)
- 12 g Garlic Cloves about 2–4 cloves; if they are very small, use more.
- 60 g Onion about 1/4 to 1/2 an onion, depending on size
- 100 g Red Tomato one medium or small tomato
- 50 ml Water or Broth you may need a bit more to help blend. Both bring deeper flavor. Any kind of broth should work.
- 1 tsp Salt you may add more to your taste.
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Remove the stems from the chiles and cut them open lengthwise. Remove as many seeds and veins as possible; the better you clean them, the milder the result. It is best to wear gloves the entire time. Scissors are the easiest tool for cutting, but you can also use a knife or even your hands.
- Place all the ingredients in a pan or on a comal and toast them over medium-high heat. Keep going until the tomato just begins to char on the surface, meaning the skin is slightly blackened in spots, or when the smell from chiles comes out about 10 minutes.
- Remove everything from the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes before transferring all the ingredients to a blender.
- Start blending slowly. Be careful, because hot ingredients can splatter and be dangerous. Give a few short pulses before letting it run continuously, and add water or broth little by little (a splash at a time) only if needed, that is, if the blender is struggling to grind.
- Once everything is blended, taste and adjust the salt if needed.
- Depending on your blender, there may still be bits of tomato skin and dried chile skin. If you like, you can strain the mixture to improve the texture.
