Ingredient Spotlight: chipotle peppers

by Nicole Weston, Posted Aug 2nd 2006 @ 1:09PM

Chipotle chiles are not a unique chile, but are actually dried, smoked jalapeno chiles. They are dark brown and wrinkly, in sharp contrast to the glossy look of fresh chiles, but have a wonderfully rich flavor. Most of the heat of the jalapeno is retained when the chile is dried, so chipotles are fairly spicy, falling in the middle ranges of the heat scale. They have smoky overtones, but the real flavor of the chiles is complex and earthy. Instead of causing a sharp and immediate heat, the heat grows gradually as you eat it and takes time to fade away.

In truth, most kinds of chilies can be smoke-dried and sometimes they are all called "chipotle" no matter what they started out as, but the vast majority of the chipotle chiles on the market were originally jalapenos.

Chiles were first dried with smoke, rather than air, because the heat caused the plants to dry much more quickly and efficiently, especially in some of the relatively humid areas of the Americas they could be grown in, and would prevent decay. The first chiles were smoked hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, but their existence was first recorded when Spaniards came to Mexico in the 16th century.

When properly smoked, the chiles have up to 90% of their moisture removed. They are easy to store, but not quite as easy to use in this state. Some chipotle chiles are sold dried, while others are ground down into a powdered spice, which makes a nice addition to spice rubs, sauces, dips or other dishes. One of the most common ways the chiles are sold is packed in adobo sauce. Adobo sauce is a dark red sauce made from more chiles, vinegar and spices, sometimes with the addition of tomato paste, which acts as a preservative and adds a lot of moisture to the previously dried chipotles. This makes them very easy to chop up and add to a dish, not to mention that the adobo sauce itself is quite tasty, too.

Chipotles are commonly used in soups, stews, salsas and sauces. Due to its earthy flavor, it pairs very well with chocolate, so it is often used in variations on Oaxacan mole sauce, which uses cocoa, and sometimes even in desserts, like Chocolate Chipotle Brownies. Chipotle can enhance the flavor of virtually any spicy or smoky dish, but to get started, try one of these recipes:

Filed Under: Did you know?, Ingredients
Tags: adobo, adobo sauce, chile, chiles, chili, chilies, chipotle, chipotle peppers, chipotles in adobo, did you know, food blogs, how to used chipotle, ingredient, ingredient spotlight, mecixo, mexican, pepper, peppes, spice, spices, uses for chipotle peppers, vegetables, what is chipotle

Chew on This

Royal Wedding Cake Details Revealed! - YumSugar

Make Your Own Pop Tarts - CHOW
Denny's Introduces a Maple Bacon Sundae - Eater
Whole Foods Opening Bars in Stores - USA Today
Rules Of Bar Etiquette -- For The Bartender - HuffPost Food

Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

8-02-2006 @1:43PM TheMatt said... Don't forget Chipotle Tabasco, far and away their best sauce.
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

8-02-2006 @1:57PM Laura said... I just experimented with these peppers the other night - this was a good recipe as well.

http://food.cookinglight.com/cooking/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1215905
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

8-02-2006 @1:59PM Rashid Khan said... Oh don't even get me started on how great these are in salsa. Attached below is my own personal roasted salsa recipe. I made a triple batch of this for a BBQ a few weeks ago and it was almost gone by the time the burgers went on. Its true what you say about the heat growing on you, this recipe isn't hot on first bite, but have a few chips worth and your mouth is burning.

Ingredients:
6 Roma (plum) tomatos
1/2 Medium-sized onion
1/2 Ear of corn
2 Cloves of fresh garlic
2 Limes
1/4 cup Chopped cilantro.
2 Chipotle peppers (Available canned in adobo sauce in the mexican food aisle of the grocery store)
2 Heavy pinches of salt
1 tsp Olive oil

Method:
Cut onion into thick slices and remove husk from corn. Apply a light coat of olive oil to tomatos, onion and corn.

Grill tomatos, onions and corn over medium heat. Tomatos should be grilled whole, turned with large tongs when they're blistered and blackened. Grill onion slices until slightly brown with dark grill marks. Corn should should be a golden brown with some dark areas.

Place tomatos in fridge to cool. Strip kernels from corn with a sharp knife. Cut onion into large (1" or so) chunks. When tomatos are cool, cut in half and de-seed, just get your fingers in there and pull out the seeds. DO NOT skin the tomatos, the skin adds color and flavor to the finished salsa. Skin the garlic and open the can of chipotle peppers.

Chiptole peppers are basically smoked jalapenos, the adobo sauce they tend to come in is a very spicy tomato based sauce. Since chipotles are jalapenos they contain lots of very hot little seeds. Cut them open and remove the seeds, they'll still be very spicy. Dice the peppers finely.

Place tomatos, onions, cilantro, garlic, chipotles, salt and the juice of the 2 limes (DO NOT add the corn yet!) in your food processor. Pulse until tasty looking. I leave it kind of chunky. Now add the corn.

Keep in mind the salsa will thicken as it cools so you may need to mix in some water before serving to thin it out a bit. The peppers will also mellow as time goes by, so you may wish to adjust the heat before serving using more peppers, small amounts of the adobo sauce, of if you're feeling crazy, the seeds from the peppers.

Thats it, thats everything. Adjust to your tastes, I make mine much hotter than I brought to the BBQ, I also go kinda heavy on cilantro.

-Rashid
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

8-02-2006 @2:58PM Aaron said... I've taken to putting a chipotle pepper and a bit of the adobo sauce into my guacamole instead of a jalapeno. The smoky, deep flavor really works, imho.
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

8-03-2006 @11:50AM gromit said... Love chipotle chiles... but I ended up throwing out way too many partial cans before I started freezing the leftovers. I put them on wax paper or a baking sheet... one chili with a bit of the adobo... and then freeze it. then I wrap them up individually and stash in the freezer. It's worked pretty well. I haven't necessarily used ALL of the chiles from every can I've opened, but at least I get a second chance at it.

g
Reply