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The Mysterious Chipotle Pepper
Let's take a look at a pepper that we all have trouble pronouncing, but few of us have trouble enjoying - the Chipotle pepper.
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Chipotle [chuh-POTE-lee] peppers are smoked, fully mature red jalapeño chili peppers, and are also known by the name chili ahumado. These chilies are usually a dull tan to coffee color and measure approximately 2 to 4 inches in length and about an inch wide. As much as one fifth of the Mexican jalapeño crop is processed into Chipotles.
History
Chipotles date back prior to the Aztec civilization in a region that is now northern Mexico City. It is conjectured that the Aztecs smoked the chilies because the thick, fleshy, jalapeño was difficult to dry and prone to rot. The Aztecs used the same 'smoke drying' process for the chilies as they used for drying meats, which allowed the chilies to be stored for a substantial period of time.
Today Chipotles are used widely throughout Mexico as well as in the United States and Canada. Most popular in the South Western U.S. and California, Chipotles have found their way into the cuisine of many celebrity chefs from Hawaii to Manhattan.
Varieties
The true chipotle is grayish-tan, quite stiff, and is often described as looking like a cigar butt. It is deeply imbued with smoke and is both hot and flavorful. This main variety is also called chile ahumado (smoked chile); chile meco (blackish-red chile; meco is close to seco, meaning dry); the double terms chipotle meco and chipotle típico, and just típico. Further confusing the issue is a cultivated variety of jalapeño that is also named 'Típico.' Yes, the 'Típico' variety is often smoked to become a típico chipotle.
Other varieties of smoked jalapeños are often mistaken for the típico chipotle. The most common one is called morita, which means 'little blackberry' in Spanish. The color of this smoked chile is dark red, sometimes approaching purple in color. Often the morita is referred to as a smoked serrano chile, but this is inaccurate. Both the típico and the morita are smoked jalapeños; the difference is that the morita is not smoked nearly as long, and thus it remains very leathery and pliable. Not only is the smoky flavor much more intense in the típico, its flavor is much richer.
But the morita is commonly marketed as the típico chipotle because it can bring $2 to $4 more per pound with that name. Unfortunately, most of the 'chipotles' being sold in markets in the United States are in actuality the inferior morita. This is because most of the chipotles produced in Mexico are eaten there, leaving little for export.
To make up for lack of the típico variety to export, producers in the northern states of Mexico, particularly Chihuahua, have turned to the morita, which are much less expensive to produce. Unfortunately, they call the morita 'chipotles' and sometimes claim that they have never heard of the típico variety. To further confuse the issue, in the interior, the típico is known by brokers as 'Veracruz.'
Other varieties of smoked chiles include:
Cobán: a piquín chile that is smoked in southern Mexico and Guatemala.
Pasilla de Oaxaca: a variety of pasilla chile that is smoked in Oaxaca and is used in the famous mole negro.
Jalapeño chico: jalapeños that are smoked while still green. Usually, they are culls from the fresh market that need to be preserved, and the smoke-drying process obscures any blemishes.
Capones: This rare smoked chile is a red jalapeño without seeds; the term means 'castrated ones.' They are quite expensive and are rarely exported.
Habanero: recently, a smoked habanero product has been introduced into the United States. It is used as a very hot substitute for any chipotle.
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