Chipotle

This article is about the smoked chile pepper. For the chain of Mexican restaurants, see Chipotle Mexican Grill. For other uses, see Chipotle (disambiguation).

Chipotle
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Chipotles are smoke-dried chili peppers (usually jalapeños) used primarily in Mexican- and Mexican-inspired cuisine.

In the United States and Mexico, consumers prefer green jalapenos. Typically, a grower will go through a jalapeno field multiple times picking the best green jalapenos for market. At the end of the growing season, jalapenos naturally start to turn red. There is no fresh market for red jalapenos. Many growers in the United States disk the red jalapenos into the ground. In Mexico, the red jalapenos are saved. They are kept on the vine as long as possible. When the jalapenos are deep red and have lost much of their moisture, they are selected to be made into chipotles.

The red jalapenos are moved to a closed smoking chamber. The red jalapenos are spread out on metal grills. Wood is placed into a firebox and the smoke enters the sealed chamber. Every few hours, a person enters the smoking chamber and stirs the jalapenos so that smoke can penetrate the jalapeno. The chiles are smoked for several days until most of the moisture is taken out of the chile. At the end of the process, the chipotles are dried up like a prune or a raisin. The underlying heat of the jalapenos is combined with the taste of smoke. Typically, it takes ten pounds of jalapenos to make one pound of chipotle.

In recent years, growers have started to use large gas dryers. Some have even started to use liquid smoke. These commercial techniques produce an inferior chipotle chile.

Most chipotle chiles are produced in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. This variety of chipotle is known as a morita. In Spanish, morita means little purple one. This is an accurate description of how the chipotle looks. In central and southern Mexico, chipotle chiles are known as chile meco. Whereas, moritas are purpole in color, meco are tan in color and have the general appearence of a used cigar butt. Almost all of the chipotles found in the United States are of the morita variety. Chipotle meco is generally not exported to the United States.

Chipotles can be purchased in many different forms. A consumer can purchase chipotle powder, chipolte pods, chipotle adobo in a can, concentrated chipotle base and wet chipotle meat marinade.

Other varieties

In addition to moritas, other varieties of chiles can be smoke-dried, including red jalapeños, serranos, habaneros, New Mexican chiles, Hungarian wax chiles, Santa Fe Grande chiles, and a milder jalapeño called the TAM (a cultivar named for Texas A&M University). Lesser-known varieties of smoked chiles include: Cobán, a piquín chile native to southern Mexico and Guatemala; Pasilla de Oaxaca: a variety of pasilla chile from Oaxaca used in mole negro; Jalapeño chico: jalapeños, smoked while still green; and Capones: a rare and quite expensive smoked red jalapeño without seeds. "Capones" means "castrated ones."

Use

Chipotles are a key ingredient that impart a relatively mild but earthy spiciness to many dishes in Mexican cuisine. The chiles are used to make various salsas. Chipotle chiles can also be ground up and combined with other spices to make a meat marinade known as an adobo.

Etymology

The word chipotle, which was also sometimes spelled chilpoctle and chilpotle, comes to English originally from the Nahuatl word chilpoctli by way of Mexican Spanish. The Nahuatl word chilpoctli means "smoked chile", formed from chil (="chile pepper") + poctli (="smoke"). The original Nahuatl word was spelled "pochilli" and has apparently become reversed. Today it is commonly misspelled and mispronounced as chipolte, an error of metathesis. Other early spellings from Mexico are tzilpoctil, tzonchilli and texochilli. The most common pronunciation is chee-POHT-lay, although some of those who are aware of this word's Nahuatl roots prefer the more historical pronunciation chee-POHT-l. Some Mexicans also know chipotles as chile poctle.

References

• Bayless, Rick (1987). Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. pp. 332–334. ISBN 0-688-04394-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Dewitt, Dave (1997). The Pepper Pantry: Chipotles. Celestial Arts. p. 96. ISBN 0890878285. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)