Spicy Pasilla-Mushroom Tacos

Rick Bayless says it took him years to "settle in with pasillas”….I’m definitely not there yet after my first taste of them. Everything about them is bold: their pungent smell and flavour and even their colour (the paste is almost black).

The taco filling starts with essential bold pasilla seasoning paste, a pureed and sieved blend of toasted garlic, toasted and rehydrated pasillas, spices and a little of the chile soaking water. After tasting it, I decided to use only ~1/3. The paste is then seared and cooked with mushrooms and stock.

The resulting filling tastes strongly of the chile “ if I’d used more, I think its distinctive flavour would have overpowered the mushrooms, and the dish would have been too hot for us.

Apart from vegetarian daughter who really liked it, family thought it was just okay.