The other day, I came across this NPR article: A rare treat getting rarer: Chimayo Red, New Mexico’s “Holy Chile”.
“Many chefs and capsaicin connoisseurs consider red chile from the tiny village of Chimayo, nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Santa Fe and Taos, to be the most delicious pepper in the American Southwest. But it’s harder and harder to find.“
Shut up. You had me at harder to find…
A couple years ago, I heard about a variety of tomato that was grown at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius. I’ve always been fascinated by Pompeii, and now also fascinated with tomatoes, I HAD TO HAVE IT. And via a connection in Germany (thanks, Rick!), I did grow those Vesuvius tomatoes that year.
Flash forward to my obsession with peppers, and now marshmallows. I’ve been working on a new flavor of marshmallows, chili lime. This one’s a great illustration of how much work it takes to get to something special.
I’ve always loved Chili Lime as a flavor, especially the way Trader Joe’s manifests it. For the marshmallows, the first idea I had was to use tajin spice, the go-to for chili lime. The results were disappointing, but it was for the best; they’d need a garden ingredient to earn a place in my shop.
The next recipe was not enough lime. Then the lime was great, but the chili wasn’t coming through in that deep, earthy way I want it to.
Then I heard about these chimayo chiles. They sounded like just the thing, especially since they’re playing hard to get to a degree.
So I ordered a package of seeds for the upcoming growing season.
If they turn out not to be the right thing, I’m also looking at guajillo chiles, which has a promising flavor profile in my testing of fancy store-bought options.
Bottom line, though, if I can’t crack the code on a chili lime marshmallows recipe in a way that I find completely next level, I won’t produce them.
The search continues…