Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Chipotle


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Not long ago I mentioned to a friend how chipotle is made. My friend had a completely different idea about chipotle. Early in my food processing career I bought truck loads of fresh jalapenos peppers in Mexico, and I have seen the process of making chipotle in person.
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Normally green jalapeno peppers are preferred for fresh sale as well as for the food processing industry, so premuim prices are paid to the grower for green peppers. But towards the end of the harvest season, more and more of the jalapeno peppers are turning red on the vine. The farmer can either plow these plants under, or if there is a market for the red jalapenos they can be harvested.
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These red jalapeno peppers are dehydrated using wood smoke. In the dehydration process most of the water goes away, and ten kilograms of fresh peppers become roughly one kilogram of dried peppers. Once they are smoked dry to approximately the consistency of raisins, they are classified as chipotles.
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LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipotle
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