Some chilis have more or less flavor depending on growing conditions, handling, etc. But...chili powder ftom ancho and guajillo is going to be, in my mind, pretty tame. They're both tasty, but tame. Commercial chili powders also have cumin, etc., so unless you were adding spices elsewhere in the recipe, you could have been midding that too. All that said, fajitas aren't known for chili heat and spice. Most of the flavor is in the sear plus the beefiness of the skirt. So the underwhelming chili powder might have been by design.

Toasting them will enhance the flavor somewhat, and you can do this on a comal or cast iron skillet, just until they start to smoke. I always remove all seeds and membrane after I split the chilies in half lengthwise, which makes them easier to toast.

For three Ancho and three Guajillo chilies, I would add one chile de arbol, for heat and extra flavor, and you can toast that with the other chilies.

Did the recipe call for garlic powder to be added to the mixture? I sometimes add that to chilies than I grind into a powder.

What stood out was that the ancho seemed less flavorable than my jarred ancho, and that’s not very new. But plllog you might be onto something with intentionally mild.

Lars, no garlic powder. Here’s the recipe. It’s not very good IMO; I’ve made it a few times now, successively reducing the sugar to zero but it’s still not what I think of for fajitas.

https://www.seriouseats.com/grilled-skirt-steak-fajitas-food-lab-recipe

I’ve since remembered a recipe from lorijean (remember her?) that I raved about years back, so I’ll try that again to see if I still like it.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2439539/what-do-i-do-with-this-skirt-steak#n=13

I don’t always love recipes I raved about many years ago so we’ll see! 🙂

I use a dry seasoning mix for fajitas and usually cook everything on our Blackstone griddle. The seasoning is added while cooking while adding a bit of water to get it to stick to the ingredients.

I made a bunch of fajitas 2 weeks ago at the lake house using sirloin tip, boneless chicken breasts, and 30-40 count shrimp. Everyone loved it enough that we had the leftovers the next night for dinner.

There are several dried fajita seasoning recipes on the web but they are all very similar or identical. This is the one I use. I quadruple the recipe and store it in a canning jar for later meals.

Fajita seasoning

FOAS, re what to do with the peppers, my BF makes really good enchilada sauce from anchos and similar peppers, depending on what he can get. He rehydrates, following a simple recipe from a Mexican cookbook he has. I'm certain he's never smoked them first, so I'll tell him he needs to try that!

Thanks plllog I’ll try that recipe.

I’m a Kenji fan, too, but I stop short of assuming his recipes and methods will automatically suit me. This one isn’t my only disappointment.

It looks like Ninfa uses chile de árbol, and so you might want to get some of those. I use those all the time in a lot of different recipes. Just remember to remove the seeds because the seeds have no flavor - only heat.

Or leave the seeds if you want heat!

If you want more heat, add more chilies, and you will get more chili flavor that way.

Was it heat they were lacking, or flavor? Not the same thing in my book.

Dried whole chili peppers may be old and lacking in flavor. I like ground chilis that aren't very hot so I can use a lot without going up in flames, and add my own heat with chipotle or cayenne.

FWIW, I don't really care for 'chili powder' - that's the combination of seasonings, not just ground up chilis - and very rarely use it. I like to season with freshly ground black pepper, whole cumin seeds, fresh garlic, and oregano, sometimes mixed with fresh marjoram and ground coriander as well. I used to be able to buy plain ground ancho chilis in bulk, but none of the stores around here carry it any more, so I substitute paprika.

I miss growing my own chilis - chilli thrips destroy any pepper plants I try to grow now 😟

As it turns out, from my experiment, the seeds themselves do not have any heat, and they are so tough that it is better to remove them if you want to grind the chilies. I was unable to grind chili seeds in a marble mortar and pestle.

My experiment involved a taste test of washed chili seeds, and I discovered that they have no heat after being washed. If they are not washed, they will have some residual heat from the remnants of the pith that clings to the seeds. The pith (or membrane/white interior ribs) is where the heat is concentrated - not in the seeds themselves.

Thank-you, Lars, for doing the tests! I was pretty convinced by the article that talked about which receptor sense the heat, and why particular molecules make it so, but there's nothing like primary research. I often use the pith and seeds and all of milder peppers, though I do remove the central seed pod attached to the stem. I max out at serranos. I rarely go habanero or anything like that because I have contact lenses and just buy premade when I'm looking for that flavor. The seeds never seemed to make a difference to me, and I'm glad to know why now.

Re flavor vs. heat, I agree with Carol. I was thinking "underwhelming" would be about a lack of heat because it was called "chili powder" and the flesh of anchos and guajillos both have very basic flavors of capsicum. They're peppers. They're staples of Mexican food presumably because they're common. Growing up in SoCal, we used "chilis" (that's Anaheim peppers, the cousin of Hatch) for most things, because that's what was common, though jalapeños, pasillas (anchos when ripe and dry), guajillos, Fresnos, chilis de arbol, etc., were also avaialble.

Hey food?

Did you find other uses for those ground up chilies? My child bought some at a local store, and there were so many I decided it would work better for us if we ground them up and tossed them into all kinds of things. We tend to like to make spice blends. I'd love to hear what you do with them!

😃

Hm forgot about this thread and see I missed a question. Underwhelming meant no flavor. I don't expect chili powder to be very hot but I do expect flavor.

Rob, I never did do anything more with them. They'll probably take up cupboard space until I need cupboard space. 🙂

Not even a heat that sneaks up on you, at all? I guess I will sometimes mix it in with the ancho chilies that they also bought. I would think it would make the flavor more authentic to that area of the country, and at the very least round out the flavor.

Thanks!