It wasn’t that long ago that chilis were something foreign, something exotic, something other. But it feels long ago because so much has changed in such a relatively short period of time. Now chilis are no more exotic than, oh, I don’t know, burritos, chili or salsa–in other words, things that contain chilis.
What’s really happened, I think, is Americans in general have become more involved in their food: how they get it, what’s in it and, yes, cooking on their own with ingredients maybe they were eating in restaurants but weren’t buying from the grocery store. Now people don’t just make chili with chili powder; they actually make their own chili powders (so you’re putting the chili back into chili). Now people don’t just buy the cheapest, most familiar-looking salsas; they seek out ones with habaneros and peaches, or they make their own (with chilis). Now people don’t accidentally mispronounce Chipotle (the pepper and restaurant); they mispronounce it on purpose, for ironic value–of course I know how to say it, but it’s funnier when I say “chip-ott-ul.” (No, it’s not, by the way).
Many people even know what chipotles are now: smoked jalapenos in adobo sauce. It’s a different world. It’s a post-foodie revolution world and chili awareness has both been part of that revolution and a reaction to it. The wonderful breadth of flavor and spice chilis add to an infinite list of existing and yet-to-be discovered dishes is unrivaled by anything and it is one of the great results of the American food awareness zeitgeist (that’s right, zeitgeist) that chilis are more available, more understood and more common.
While choosing a favorite flavor strikes me as a pretty stupid endeavor, for rhetorical purposes, I’ll go ahead and say “salty” is my favorite flavor. (That requires some qualification, as there are few things as gross to me as over-salted eggs.) I like food well-salted, yes, but I also love foods that contain lots of salt (anchovies, olives and capers).
And that’s where the pickled jalapenos come into play. Pickled jalapenos (I’ve been getting them in a jar) have what you might think–jalapenos and vinegar–but they also have a little salt. So, when you add them to anything you’re adding salt, but you’re also adding [good for you] flavor. So, I’ve just been putting them in what-ever. Anywhere I’d put salt, I slice or dice some pickled jalapenos.
Delicious. Some of my current favorites:
Diced, sauted for a minute, scrambled with eggs
Use the vinegar in Bloody Mary mix, use the pepper as a garnish
Slice and add as a topping to any sandwich
Dice and use as marinade component for meat, fish or vegetables
Julienne and saut with string beans
Chopped as a topping on nachos with cheese, beans and whatever else I’ve got
The possibilities are limitless, but these are some I’ve been playing around with. I’ll definitely keep a jar in my fridge from now on as a quick burst of mild heat and salt to add to any dish.
Ever-present, ever-delicious, the chipotle pepper is (now) as American as apple pie.
But, while the peppers are often referred to by their longhand “chipotles in adobo,” what is this mysterious adobo, the red acidic sauce that so frequently blankets everyone’s favorite chili pepper?
First, let’s establish that chipotles are smoked jalapenos–that’s pretty well-known, although not universally to be sure. Many gourmands and pepper enthusiasts probably are also aware that they’re most often available for purchase in a can, in adobo sauce. Given this frequent means of packaging, when we think of the flavor chipotle, we’re not merely thinking of the flavor of a smoked jalapeno, but a smoked jalapeno is a specific sauce.
Adobo is a generic term (much like mole, the Mexican sauce that includes dozens of ingredients and varies from region to region) for a Latin American sauce, the word simply meaning seasoning or marinade. The one in the tin with chipotles, however, is generally a tomato, garlic, vinegar, salt and spice combination. The sweetness of the tomato and the acid in the vinegar combine with the smoke and the heat of the chipotle to form an incredibly balanced, rich pepper, or condiment really, as this is often how it is used.
So, when you add chipotle in adobo to mayonnaise, for instance, you’re adding a lot more than just pepper, which is why chipotle mayonnaise has so much flavor, not to mention why it’s red-ish (jalapenos, as they’re harvested, are generally green). But they make great additions to a million things: any creamy sauce (like mayonnaise) an addition or base for a glaze with pork or other meats, chopped and used as a component in an omelet.
Now readily available just about anywhere, make chipotles in all their multi-faceted flavor glory a part or your pantry and culinary repertoire.
From the grand tradition of American bastardization of ethnic cuisines comes General Tso’s Chicken, and how. There are plenty of fair and balanced criticisms of this dish:
It is battered, deep fried, covered in sweet gunky MSG-laden sauce.
Uh, you call that stuff in the middle chicken?
That is most definitely not Chinese food, and I don’t know who General Tso is, but I guarantee he wasn’t winning any wars eating this dish.
While all true, these criticisms all miss the more important point–that General Tso’s Chicken is delicious. Now, of course there are different kinds of delicious. There’s foie gras terrine with Krug Champagne delicious and that would not be the same kind of delicious you’ll find in your average plate of General Tso’s Chicken. You will instead find the sort of delicious shared by things like funnel cake, Nathan’s hot dogs (at a baseball game drunk with $8 macrobrew beers) and pigs in a blanket, which is to say fatty, trashy, yummy food a fine genre indeed.
According to the know-all Wikipedia, the sauce consists of ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sherry, sugar, sesame oil, scallion and hot chili peppers. It’s the hot chili peppers that give it its signature bite, and, in my book, the more chili the better. In effect what you have is a sauce that while totally cloying is otherwise balanced in its flavors: sweet, spicy, salty, sour and, you could even argue, umami.
In other words, the sauce is like crack on the palate; you can’t stop eating it. A friend of mine had General Tso’s Shrimp today for the first time, a long-time de facto fan of the more popular chicken variety. I asked him how it was and his response was, “It is now abundantly clear to me that one can improve the taste of anything by tso’ing it. G2gbb.”
Indeed.
Erin Hollingsworth
April 6th, 2009 by Food Guy | Posted in Tips | Comments (0)
It wasn’t that long ago that chilis were something foreign, something exotic, something other. But it feels long ago because so much has changed in such a relatively short period of time. Now chilis are no more exotic than, oh, I don’t know, burritos, chili or salsa–in other words, things that contain chilis.
While choosing a favorite flavor strikes me as a pretty stupid endeavor, for rhetorical purposes, I’ll go ahead and say “salty” is my favorite flavor. (That requires some qualification, as there are few things as gross to me as over-salted eggs.) I like food well-salted, yes, but I also love foods that contain lots of salt (anchovies, olives and capers).
Ever-present, ever-delicious, the chipotle pepper is (now) as American as apple pie.
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