How to Toast Dried Chiles - CHOW Tip

Chef Deborah Schneider, author of¡Baja! Cooking on the Edge, says that dried chiles need to be toasted before using them in recipes like her ancho chile salsa.

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TRANSCRIPT
All chiles need to be toasted before you can use them. It develops the flavors and dries them out a little bit. So the pepper goes right into the pan and you'll see that the color's immediately going to start to change and the pepper might even start to blow up a little bit like a balloon. What you don't want to do is burn it. If they blacken they get really bitter. Take them out. Remove the stems and the seeds and then tear themup. The reason you tear them up is that it makes it easier to combine them in whatever you're cooking. So at this point I can saute them into a salsa or I can pulverize for use as a powder.