Everything about Chipotle totally explained
A
chipotle (
chee-POTE-lay; Spanish ) is a
smoke-dried jalapeño chili used primarily in
Mexican, Mexican-American,
Tex-Mex, and Mexican-inspired cuisine.
There are many varieties of jalapeños which vary in size and heat. In
Mexico, the
jalapeño is also known as the
cuaresmeño and
gordo. Until recently, chipotles were almost exclusively found in the markets of central and southern Mexico. As Mexican food became more popular in the
United States in the late 20th century and into the 21st century, jalapeño production and processing began to move into Northern Mexico and the United States.
Production
Typically, a grower will pass through a jalapeño field multiple times, picking the best green jalapeños for market. At the end of the growing season, jalapeños naturally begin to turn red. There is an extensive fresh market for red jalapeños in both Mexico and the United States. Many U.S. growers
disk the red jalapeños into the ground. They are kept on the vine as long as possible. When the jalapeños are deep red and have lost much of their moisture, they're selected to be made into chipotles.
The red jalapeños are moved to a closed smoking chamber where they're spread out on metal grills. Wood is placed in a firebox, and the smoke enters the sealed chamber. Every few hours the jalapeños are stirred to improve smoke penetration. The chiles are smoked for several days, until most of the moisture is removed. At the end of the process, the chipotles have dried up in a manner akin to prunes or raisins. The underlying heat of the jalapeños is combined with the taste of smoke. Typically ten pounds of jalapeños make one pound of chipotle.
In recent years, growers have begun using large gas dryers. Some processors have even started to use
liquid smoke. These techniques produce what most culinary experts believe to be an inferior chipotle chile.
Varieties
Most chipotle chiles are produced in the Northern Mexican state of
Chihuahua. This variety of chipotle is known as a
morita (Spanish for
blackberry or
black raspberry; literally "little purple one"). This is a description of how the chipotle looks. In central and southern Mexico, chipotle chiles are known as
chile meco,
chile ahumado, or
tipico. Whereas moritas from Chihuahua are purple in color,
chile meco is tan/grey in color and has the general appearance of a cigar butt. Almost all of the chipotle chiles found in the United States are of the
morita variety. Almost all of the
chipotle meco is consumed in Mexico, though some is exported to the United States, where it's generally available only in Mexican grocery stores.
Chipotles can be purchased in many different forms, including chipotle powder, chipotle pods,
chipotles en adobo in a can, concentrated chipotle base and wet chipotle meat marinade.
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 Mild Jalapeño (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" translates roughly into "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's 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 prefer the pronunciation chee-POHT-til. Some Mexicans refer to chipotles as
chile poctle.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Chipotle'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://chipotle.totallyexplained.com">Chipotle Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
