A dab of Gourmet Chipotle Paste With Adobo or one of Art Of Chipotle’s sauces will dial up the flavor on your everyday and party dishes. Photo by Floortje | IST.
|
ALISSA DICKER SCHREIBER is on the editorial staff of THE NIBBLE.
|
|
August 2008 |
|
The Art Of Chipotle
A Fine Family Of Chipotle: Paste, Salsa & Sauce
Page 1: Chipotle Overview
CAPSULE REPORT: Chipotle, a smoked jalapeño chile, is one of the biggest international flavors to migrate into the mainstream in the past decade. Originally found only in Mexican restaurants and in a few hot sauces, chipotle is now everywhere. If you want to brush up on this smoky sensation, The Art Of Chipotle has a well-conceived line that makes Chipotle 101 an easy subject to master. This is Page 1 of a four-page article. Click on the black links below to see other pages.
It’s sometimes tricky to find a happy medium when it comes to chile-flavored products. A fiery, capsaicin-packed sauce might suit the adventurous palate, but can scare away the more timid eater—or anyone who values his taste buds. On the flip side, many “mild” products are just plain wimpy.
Luckily, there’s The Art of Chipotle, an award-winning line of all natural, gluten-free, chipotle-based products. While they have zip, it’s never that painful, smoke-coming-out-the-ears, need-to-stick-your-head-in-a-bucket-of-water kind of heat. Instead, the well-balanced flavors enable the eater to actually taste the earthy, smoky flavor of chipotle, receiving its heat on the back end.
What Is A Chipotle?
A chipotle is a ripe (red) jalapeño chile that has been smoked and dried to a reddish-brown color. This process deepens and concentrates the flavor, creating something richer, with a moderate amount of heat that hits the palate slowly. Chipotle is known for its warm chocolate and tobacco aroma and smoky notes. There is sweetness and heat, without the fire of the habañero. Chipotles are typically rehydrated and chopped up for recipes. Their thick flesh is well-suited for use in soups, stews and other slow-cooked dishes. Their distinctive flavor, once found only in Mexican dishes, is now appreciated in a broad spectrum of recipes, and is a cornerstone of American Southwestern cuisine. While chipotle is used to flavor many prepared foods—marinades, salsas and sauces, for example—it can be purchased whole (chipotle pods), canned (chipotles en adobo—see the next paragraph) and as a concentrated base. As with any food product, quality varies: The best seeds matched with perfect growing conditions and the best processing methods yield the best chipotle flavor.
What Is Adobo?
Adobo, the Spanish word for marinade, is a tart sauce and marinade made with chipotle chiles. The chipotles are ground and combined with other ingredients, which can include cumin, garlic, onion, oregano, tomato paste, vinegar and salt, to make the sauce. Like tomato sauce, it is available canned, but purists make it from scratch. |
 |
 |
 |
| Left: Green jalapeño chiles ripen into red jalapeños. Center: Red jalapeños are smoked and dried, transforming into chipotle chiles. Right: Adobo sauce, made with chipotles (shown in the sauce). Photo credits: Left and center, StockXchng. Right: Wikipedia.org. |
The Art Of Chipotle
To make its salsas, bottled sauces and ever-useful chipotle paste, which is the base for all the other recipes, The Art of Chipotle buys chipotles from a domestic grower. The jalapeños are washed, de-stemmed and deseeded, smoked, dried and ground into paste at the farm.
The Art of Chipotle products are incredibly handy and perfectly suited for any number of everyday uses—and for a vast range of palates, not just for those who like things hot. We didn’t have a chance to taste every sauce and salsa in the line, but the ones we tried were extremely versatile. They’re perfect, of course, for traditional Mexican, Southwestern and Tex-Mex preparations, but can also be used for dipping, marinating, simmering and topping just about anything. Individual products are reviewed, beginning on the next page.
|
The Art Of Chipotle line is manufactured by Pfleider Pfoods. You can see photos of the Pfleider pfamily in their company logo. |
Continue To Page 2: Gourmet Chipotle Paste With Adobo
Go To Article Index Above
Lifestyle Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. Images are the copyright of their individual owners.
|
