Chocolate Chile Pie

A million years ago, I worked at this restaurant that did a sort of texmex fusion.  It was my first introduction to texmex and fusion.  At the impressionable age of too young to care about such things, however old that was, I remember being blown away by a few dishes there and ate them constantly.  The restaurant is long gone, but the dishes remain with me decades later.

One was blackened catfish enchiladas.  I have yet to even begin to think of how to reinvent that dish, but it’s on my to do list.  The stuffed pork tenderloin with with chilies, cheese, slathered in a smoky sauce could make a girl faint.  Another was the ancho pie, which I’ve been experimenting with for days.  Yes, it’s about twenty or thirty years old, but I’m bringing it back.  With a vengeance.  It’s actually one of the few ways I like to eat walnuts.  And I’m about to get all my friends hooked on this pie.

Don’t be scared of the ancho.  It’s just dried ancho/poblano peppers, which aren’t particularly hot to begin with, ground up.  I used the extra coffee grinder we have laying around.  Don’t skip the grinding step because you don’t want a bbq flavor in your pie by using already ground “chili powder”.