For red chile sauce? Here's a basic one you can play with:
New Mexico Red Chile Sauce
(Yields approximately 2 cups.)
Ingredients
(All measurements are approximate – we’re not talking about a recipe from a precise culture)
8
-14 dried New Mexico chiles
3-4 cloves of garlic
1-2 Tbsp lard
flour
1 tsp oregano (preferably Mexican oregano, but no big whoop if it’s not)
beef broth (optional)
2 bay leaves (optional)
½ Tbsp vinegar (optional)
1 Tbsp unsweetened chocolate or cocoa (optional)
½ to 1 tsp salt
Preparation
Rinse the chiles in cold water, then toast them for 5-10 minutes by placing them on a cookie sheet in an oven preheated to 275 degrees. Keep an eye on them and turn them so they don’t scorch – they’ll be fragrant when you’re done, but not burnt.
Allow the chiles to cool for a minute, then remove the stems and most of the seeds. Break them into pieces, place them in a pot, and cover them with boiling water. Soak them for at least 15 minutes.
While they soak, make a roux in the saucepan you will use to cook the sauce. Melt the lard, and slowly add 2-3 Tbsp of flour, stirring until the flour and fat combine. Toast the roux until it just begins to brown (don’t scorch!) and gives off a nutty aroma. Remove from heat.
Remove the chiles from the water, reserving the water, and place them in a blender. Add oregano, garlic and 2 cups of the reserved chile water, then blend for one minute.
Add chile sauce to roux in pan, and simmer over medium heat (chile is weird – you don’t want to get it too hot), stirring occasionally (if you want, add the bay leaves, the vinegar, and the chocolate at this time). You can add browned beef or pork (or both) at this time as well. Add water (or optional beef broth) as needed to thin sauce (you want it to just coat a spoon) during cooking. Simmer about 30 minutes, then salt to taste and serve. You can use this as an enchilada sauce (might want to thicken it a bit more in that case), or over meat, eggs or whatever.
[If you want to use chile powder instead of whole chile pods, just mix about ½ cup of powder mixed with 3 cups of hot water and substitute for the soaked chiles in water. Add it to the roux and away you go! You can tell whether a sauce is made with pods (considered somewhat better - it's more sweet and less bitter, and "fleshier") by the fact that you’ll have to pick flakes of chile skin out of your teeth after eating sauce made with pods.]
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