Roasted Halibut with Chile de Arbol Sauce

Nothing new in the last few days... the rain made me a little lazy.

so i'll post one of my favorites that i made over the last several months.

If you're a glutton for spice like i am, this sauce is heavenly, works with chicken, steak, fish, shrimp, would be good on eggs... I could pretty much put it on anything.

without further adieu,

Roasted Halibut with Chile de Arbol Sauce

the fish

1 gigantic slab of super good halibut, cut into 2x3inch chunks (think the piece we got was about 1.8 lbs)

also, apart from the sauce (below), you'll need:

1 lemon
2 Tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt


the sauce

I made the sauce a few days ahead of time, as it really needs to sit for at least 24 hours.
Very glad of my decision to make twice as much sauce as needed, cause now i have the hard part done for another round sometime soon. I'd recommend doubling or tripling this recipe and jarring some for later.

Worth mentioning that you need a good blender or food processor for this.


anyway here it is:

50-60 dried chiles de arbol
4 Tbsp shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
4 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup lemon juice



making the sauce

WEAR GLOVES FOR THIS STEP!!!
These chilies are no joke. I'd advise doing this in a well ventilated area and using gloves.

Remove the stems from the chilies and break them in half. Roll/squish them in your fingers to get all the seeds out. I saved my seeds for later use. This part takes a while, as well.

Turn the vent fan on high. open windows, whatever you can to get the air moving wherever you do this step.
Toast chilies over medium heat in a skillet until browned. Takes about 5 minutes. Stir or shake the pan as often as possible to keep the chilies from burning. (A bit of burn is actually good for the flavor, thus the toasting in the first place) Beware however, the smoke that comes off these things burning is basically a biological weapon and will make you and your friends/family cough very very hard. Add these to the blender.

After the trial of chili roasting, toast the pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and cumin seeds over medium heat the same way until the pumpkin seeds start popping, 3 to 5 minutes. Add to blender.

Add garlic, salt, oregano and allspice to blender and then pour in boiling water.

A this, point you're probably just getting over your coughing fit, so cover the blender and let it settle and stand in the boiling water for 10-15 minutes. You could probably use some fresh air, or you could start squeezing lemons.

Now add the lemon juice, and puree the whole deal until it's pretty much smooth but with some chili bits here and there.

You're done! Put it in the fridge for at least a day and up to a week.


cooking the fish

Marinate the fish in enough sauce to fully coat it all in a big ziplock or whatever. I marinated for about an hour or so.

Preheat oven to 450°F

Grease a baking pan, and put the fish and all the sauce into it.
Dribble a bit of oil on each piece of fish, and add a dash of salt

Roast until fish flakes easily when tested, about 12 minutes.

Serve with lemon wedges.