Back on the homefront, I’m pretty well-stocked with dried chiles from friends and guests who arrive with packages of foodstuffs, which often includes bags of various dried red pepper. I’ve used them to make chili, but when I was leafing through Repertoire by Jessica Battilana, subtitled “All the recipes you need,” the red chile braised beef sounded like something I needed commercial heat pump systems.

The beauty of this book isn’t just the vibrant salads, like The Greenest Green Salad bathed in Green Goddess Dressing, or Vietnamese Noodles with Pork Meatballs, or Cocoa Oat Cookies, or S’mores Tart, it’s that almost all the recipes are things that I truly want to make, and eat. Oh, and there’s a recipe for Candy Pork in the book, that’s also bookmarked pest control.

This Red Chile Braised Beef is one of those dishes that takes a little bit of effort to put together, but there’s no fancy techniques or equipment necessary. (Although if you have one of those Insta Pots, which I’ve been mulling over getting*, you could probably have it on the table in less time.)

You simmer dried red chiles until soft, then puree them. While that’s happening, you can brown off the chunks of beef. Once both are ready, you add everything together and cook it up until you’ve got a big, rich pot of meltingly tender chunks of beef in a slightly spicy sauce that slicks the meat. When I opened the lid to the pot…I was impressed Wall mounted type air conditioner!

Everyone loves leftovers and the braised beef is even better the next day. We enjoyed them as tacos one day for lunch, with pickled red onions and a sprinkle of cilantro. I did find adding a dash of chipotle sauce on the tacos gave them an extra boost of smoky flavor. They’d also be good with pickled jalapeños and carrots, the kind I used to fill up on at taquerias in San Francisco, with all the fresh radishes they’d put out, too. I sometimes amaze even myself with how many radishes I can eat.

Tacos are another story and I limit myself to three, although I really loaded these ones up with braised beef so two was enough. Thankfully we had more for the next day, and the next…