INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Preface: From The Journey North - Torreon to Chihuahua  This part of
Chihuahua is quite an important chile-growing area as  well, and while
the greatest part of the crop is dried, fresh chiles  are also used:
"chile de arbol", "guajillo" (confusingly called  "cascabel" there),
"jalapeno", and "chilaca" or Anaheim. The  "chilaca", or "chile verde",
the long slender light green chile that  ranges from mild to hot, is
the one featured most commonly in the  cooking of Chihuahua. While it
is used fresh, or dried as "chile de  la tierra" or "chile colorado",
there is an interesting variation: it  is charred and peeled and then
hung up to dry, whole, without  removing seeds and veins. In this state
it is known as the "chile  pasado". I warn you, if you do this, 1 pound
will reduce to 2 ounces.  But it is well worth it because when
rehydrated before cooking this  chile has a delicious flavor and
enhances the stews or "rellenos" or  "chile con queso" in which it is
used. In recent years mushroom  cultivation has been introduced, and
now the preferred filling for  "chiles rellenos" is a mixture of
mushrooms and cheese.  The crop of jalapenos, while still green, is
mostly destined for the  canning industry; once they ripen to red,
their value is diminished.  Not so many years ago they were simply
thrown away in the latter  stage, until Don Juventino Santos, an
enterprising man from  Tulancingo, Hidalgo, who was in the chile
business, decided to  smoke-dry them for "chipotle mora".  When we were
driving out from Camargo the following day to visit the  Lago Toronto,
the air was filled with the aroma of smoke and chiles,  andd there, a
few yards from the roadside, were huge rectangular  cement-block
structures about twelve feet high. At intervals around  the base were
fire boxes filled with glowing, smoking logs. Spread  out in a thin
layer over the slatted surface were deep red, wrinkled  jalapenos - the
color darkens as the smoking process progresses. A  man with a shovel
was turning them over from time to time. The  farther we drove out of
twon, the more small communities ("ejidos")  we saw and visited that
were also dedicated to smoking chiles, and as  we drove back that
afternoon there were trucks tipping out their  loads of the ripened
jalapenos onto the newly vacated smoking beds.  This smoke-drying
process takes several days in which time the weight  of the chiles is
reduced to one seventh that of the fresh. The smoked  chiles are so
cheap that one wonders how on earth anyone makes any  money out of it
at all. We bought sackfuls to support the local  economy and
distributed them lavishly to all the cooks we knew along  the route
back and in Michoacan.  They were extraordinarily picante, owing to the
hot, dry summer. A  recipe for them pickled "en escabeche" can be found
in "The Art of  Mexican Cooking", and following is a recipe for
chipotles "en adobo".  Preserving chiles by smoke-drying dates from
pre-columbian times, and  the basic process, albeit with slightly
different techniques is still  used today.  Jalapeno chiles - ripened,
smoke-dried, and prepared in a pungent  sauce for chipotles "en adobo"
- have taken the American gastronomic  world by storm. They are
everywhere, the condiment of the decade,  mixed with anything and
everything: in sauces, seasoning pastes,  soups, salads, breads, etc.
(not yet I sincerely hope, in ice cream).  There are two types of
"chipotles": the larger, highly smoked,  tobacco-colored one and the
smaller mulberry-colored (as the name  implies) "mora" - not to be
confused with "moritas", which are  smaller. When I first came to
Mexico many years ago, the larger  light-colored chiles were more in
evidence, canned in a light pickle,  "escabeche". Today the canning
industry seems to favor the "mora",  possibly because its smaller size
lends itself to the small cans.  Of the many brands exported from
Mexico, my preference is for those  packed in a darker-colored sauce, a
real "adobo", rather those in a  more acidic, tomato-based sauce. Of
course, it is always interesting  to make your own, without
preservatives and fresh, for which I give a  recipe here. This
preparation is pungent; a milder version is given  in the note that
follows the recipe.  Rinse the chipotle chiles and drain. Pierce each
one right through  with a  continued in part 2

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 907
Calories From Fat: 259
Total Fat: 29.4g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 4878.2mg
Potassium: 815.2mg
Carbohydrates: 158.7g
Fiber: 9.4g
Sugar: 107.2g
Protein: 10.1g