Chipotle

[r_transpose_p]

I had seen the restaurant chain by that name, and I had seen red-ripened jalapeño peppers sold as "Chipotle" (and had once had the sauce with the buffalo on it) but until this weekend, I had never tried an actual smoke-dried jalapeño (aka chipotle) chile

Comments

[r_transpose_p]

Oh right, why aioli makes more sense for vegetables then barbecue sauce.

Barbecue sauce is vinegar, garlic, some sort of flavoring, and some sort of sweetener (the flavoring apparently varies wildly from place to place, but the most conventional sort is a smoky tomato flavor -- this was the barbecue sauce flavor component that chipotles most reminded me of)

Aioli, conventionally, is vinegar, garlic (as an emulsifier) and olive oil.

In California cuisine, various spices are often added, and it is often used as a vegetable marinade (a canonical recipe of this sort is "grilled artichokes marinated in aioli" -- see
google for more info).

If one uses the same spices for a barbecue sauce and an aioli the difference is that in place of a sweetener, one has an oil.

This makes sense, since most meats contain oil, and one adds sugar to them by marinating in barbecue sauce -- as most vegetables contain sugar and little to no oil, it is logical to use aioli instead.

[angelbob]

I'm used to an aioli containing egg as well as oil, and thus coming out as a sort of flavored mayonnaise. For that reason, I usually don't like them :-) Your version sounds better.

The "Chipotle" restaurant chain is owned by the McDonalds corporation. For that reason, I have avoided them to date. I don't know if the food is good or not.

[r_transpose_p]

I often confuse "aioli" (Wikipedia lists this as the French Provencal spelling -- and notes it actually is often made with the egg yolks) with "allioli" (Catalan spelling -- not made with egg yolks). I think that once one starts adding strange flavors to one's aioli (for instance, my favorite variant involves "pico de gallo") one is no longer following any sort of sensible European culinary tradition and can spell it however one wants. "Vegetable marinade" might be a better description, although I have been known to use the "garlic as an emulsifier" trick in salad dressing [ingredients, 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, one clove garlic, one tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, a couple of leaves of fresh oregano] [directions: blend all ingredients -- no particular need to peel garlic clove first].

I also do not recall ever having been to a Chipotle's. Apparently they make a sauce which uses Chipotles.

[queen_elvis]

Do you have to do the thing with the blender and the slow stream of oil to make an aioli? Seems like a lot of effort for what is essentially mayo, but then again, I whip my own cream, so maybe I'm a hypocrite.

[r_transpose_p]

One needs no slow stream if one has the following

1. A tolerance for an excessive amount of raw garlic in one's aioli
2. An immersion blender.