I think I first read Laura Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate' in 1993, about a year after the film of the same name came out. The symbolism and magical realism of a tale of Love, Food and Longing consumed me in great waves. A romantic soul was appeased, and a great love of Mexican flavours was born. Funnily, in the early 90's there wasn't exactly a wealth of traditional Mexican ingredients and recipes to be had in Australia. I made do with regular trips to Montezuma's in Crow's Nest for my flavour 'hit'. As I recall, I pretty much ordered beans, quesa fundido and large jugs of sangria on loop.
It was here that I first discovered Chipotle -smoked, dried red jalapeno peppers. It was true love, and like all true loves, it has lasted a lifetime. That smoky heat...it was the precise flavour of Tita and Pedro's love and their final consummation/conflagration. It was like finally being able to eat Esquivel's book. If you've read it you'll understand the incredible desire to leap into the pages and experience the Quail in rose-petal sauce. If you haven't read it, you really ought to remedy that...
Of course, as in Tita's kitchen -the magic of chipotle comes from incredibly masterful treatment of simple ingredients. The humble red jalapeno chili is smoked over soft wood (hickory, oak, pecan) for 48 hrs and then left to bathe in the sun for another 24. It's then either ground up and used as a dry seasoning, or married to tomato, vinegar and sugar and transformed into chili in adobo sauce. The day I actually found smoked and dried jalapenos in a co-op was quite literally akin to discovering The Lost City of Gold. There have been few moments in my life that I have felt so damned excited-smug about procuring an ingredient. Then the fun began...how to use this wonderful thing in a manner befitting it's 'origin story' in my world.
“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted.”
One of the first experiments (naturally enough) was with chocolate. Smoky chili and chocolate are a match made in heaven -and yes, we did momentarily jump into an entirely different book/film there for a second. First hint, chili wants richness to complement it both gastronomically and scientifically. Its 'heat' comes from a nifty little compound called capsaicin. It's a false 'heat' though, it just happens to bind to the same receptors that identify scalding temperatures. Tricky little bugger :-). It's also just a wee bit dangerous as it is a neurotoxin. There's a whole world of interesting reactions, sub-reactions etc there if you care to read up, but I assure you -the poison's in the dose (perhaps avoid ingesting large amounts of the Carolina Reaper though...). So, the body recognizes dangerous heat and responds by releasing endorphins. Sometimes dangerous heat feels wonderful doesn't it? I don't need to truly take this metaphor's clothes off for you to understand I'm sure :-). While we're at it, capsaicinoids are derived from vanillin compounds, -yep -we're back to why it works so well with chocolate. So do that. I promise you won't regret it :-)
It will also transport your senses married to raspberries or strawberries...so many wonderful combinations discovered, and so many left to explore. However, we must all live in the day-to-day as well as this little piece of wonderful, so let's marry our merry little smoky pleasure bomb to something a little more practical and healthy shall we? This little recipe when introduced to toasted sourdough, crisp cucumber, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt flakes will do the trick for you -I promise :-)
CHARMING CHIPOTLE and CHICKPEAS
Grab your whizzy-thing. A nice powerful one please. Dump into it the following:
2 cans of chickpeas and the canning liquid from one (aquafaba...truly wonderful stuff)
3-4 garlic cloves
2 tbsp tahini and 1 tbsp peanut butter (oh settle down, -would I lead you astray?....)
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5-6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 tsp dry chipotle seasoning
1 1/3 tsp salt
WHIZZ! Whizz like you've lost your one true love and you're taking it out on the legumes :-)
Pop it into a large sealed container in the fridge, then take it out again when you realize you just can't wait.
Do this
Chewy nutty crunch, silky creamy heat, cool relief. I know it's just fancy hommous and cukes, but it's just such a good thing. You got Esquivel, you got chipotle, you got chocolate, and you got 'how to grow your own endorphins without (before?...) a good bed-romp'. My work here is done :-)
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