The chile, it seems to me, is one of the few foods that has its own god.
— Diana Kennedy

See image notes below

Cooking is one of my great pleasures. I enjoy nothing more than creating food that enlivens the palate, invokes strength of flavor, and speaks of refined textures and seductive and sensuous aromas. Spices, herbs and aromatics are to me like pigments to a painter - to be mixed in an endless variety of alchemical compounds, elixirs, and infusions.

But spices, herbs and aromatics go beyond the pleasures of the palate. Historically, in early trade, spices often took the place of currency, they have played important roles in the healing arts, adding properties to medicines, bringing scent to perfume and used to enhance our seductive qualites.

The flavors brought by these botanicals also become synonymous with location - certain foods evoke immediate recongnition of where they originate, and the mythologies and imagination we associate with with these faraway places. Spice has for much of history traveled where we as individuals could not, or have not. I have never been to Shanghai, but if I close my eyes I can vividly imagine salty caramelized roasted pork sticky with a sweet plum, soy and start anise, served from a street vendor surrounded by wafts of fragrant smoke. Cuisine is, in my mind, just as much a medium for expressing culture as is art, literature or music.

Wavery Root suggests that, "every country possess, it seems, the sort of cuisine it deserves, which is to say the sort of cuisine it is appreciative enough to want". American cuisine, unlike our current political climate, is incredibly welcoming and diverse in it's acceptance of foreign tastes; at once the result of our diverse population, and a growing acceptance of foreign flavors and cooking techniques. Americans prize our diverse culinary traditions even when we might not welcome those who introduce them - a fact that I have a very hard time accepting in this time of war and distrust. Anglo America - that culture of the "Founding Fathers" was not what America has become - Our fore bearers preached austerity, blandness and economic practicality at the expense of indulgence and taste. It was over and over again in this country that the lower economic classes and immigrants introduced Americans to the flavors of the world outside it's borders; new and rich flavors which America has thrown, with more relish into it's famous "melting pot" than it ever has any other the cultural products introduced by the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

Spices, herbs and aromatics, it seems, travel more freely than those who have mastered their use

See image notes below

When I started Chilefire in 2005 I selected the name - to speak to the topic of spice, for exactly that reason. Chiles are an unusual cultural spice in many ways, chiles apparent universal appeal, the fruits wholehearted integration into virtually every cuisine on the planet is in some ways unique. Smithsonian researchers report that across the Americas, chile peppers were cultivated and traded as early as 6,000 years ago and likely were consumed by the native people in the Ecuadorian rainforests even earlier than that.

Recently plant remains which include corn, squash, beans, avocados and chile peppers, were recovered from two caves in southern Mexico and analyzed by a Smithsonian ethnobotanist/archaeologist and a colleague. their finding indicate that as early as 1,500 years ago, Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region enjoyed a spicy fare very similar to Mexican cuisine today. The two caves yielded 10 different cultivated varieties of chile peppers “What was interesting to me was that we were able to determine that they were using the peppers both dried and fresh,” Perry said. (Chilies broken while fresh had a recognizable breakage pattern.) “It shows us that ancient Mexican food was very much like today. They would have used fresh peppers in salsas or in immediate preparation, and they would have used the dried peppers to toss into stews or to grind up into sauces like moles.”

Today, chiles have managed to integrate themselves into the diet and cuisine of very nearly every continent on the planet. I have been told by a colleague at National Geographic that cultivated chiles have been found being grown by "un-contacted" tribes deep in the Congo, proof to the contrary that these remote tribes are truly un-contacted, as ultimately this spice had its heredity in the equally deep jungles of ancient Ecuador.

That Famous European, Columbus, brought chile peppers in several forms back to Europe; from there, Portuguese traders spread them along the coasts of present-day Africa, India, Asia, China, the Middle East, Central Europe and Italy. Areas which already consumed a diet rich in highly spiced foods — such as present-day Asia and India — very quickly incorporated chile peppers into their local cuisines; so quickly, in fact, that until the 1900s chile peppers were widely believed to be indigenous to Asia and India — they were not.

So on this Columbus day I thought it worth a meditation on the history of the chile, this skilled culinary ambassador, who was set upon the world by another whose legacy is both celebrated and despised.

The market was associated with a date ranch that we had been driving by - unnoticed as our attention was focused on the wavering engine heat indicator which was only being kept from a boil over by our willingness to run the heater all out on this 104° day.

Once reserved exclusively for Moroccan royalty and their most important guests, Medjool dates were considered a precious confection and for many remain so today.

We pulled into the market to give the car some time to cool off, while we wandered down the market aisles and pondered the idea of a "Date Shake". The heat may have helped me decide that day to go ahead and order that five or six dollar date shake, and I remember well waiting in anticipation as the girl with the long brown hair put it together, three or four scoops of french vanilla ice cream, a good sized scoop of a date paste (I was later to learn it was Medjool date paste) and a splash of milk. I imagine now the buzz of the burr inside the frosted stainless shake cup, before she half poured, half scooped my date shake, now a rich carmel brown into a paper cup.

It was even more thick and smooth than I'd anticipated, with chewy bits of date skin and an intense carmel and honey flavor. The cold made the pieces of date in the shake chewier, somehow even more satisfying as they softened under my bite - I was quite literally smitten with this first real taste of fresh dates, and before I left the market I had spent twenty five dollars on soft, fat Medjool dates, some wrapped like truffles in thin colored foil, others pressed together in transparent plastic cartons.

Our road trip sent us north - away from the fertile date plantations of the south, so there were to be no further forays into date shakes on that trip, and before we made it home - the dates I had purchased, even the fancy foil wrapped delicacies, were long since gone; eaten around fires at campsites, or warmed on the dashboard with morning coffee in San Luis Obispo.

Date seller in the old souq in Kuwait City, surrounded by dates from Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Image credit: Trammell Hudson

A Thousand Uses

The origin of the date palm is lost in antiquity. Dates have been a staple food of the Middle East for thousands of years. They are believed to have originated in the Persian Gulf area, and have been cultivated for thousands of years in the Middle East. Known cultivation range from Mesopotamia to prehistoric Egypt. There is archaeological evidence of date cultivation in eastern Arabia in 6000 BC. Dates and date cultivation gave a means of existence to thousands of people. It was said to offer man a thousand uses including thread, needles, baskets, lumber, mattresses, rope, numerous other household items and an integral part of their diet.

In culinary terms dates are equally versatile and Medjool dates are particularly wonderful, deep amber to almost red in color, with a slightly wrinkled skin. The flesh of the fruit is immensely satisfying, sticky and thick, they are rich with flavors of wild honey, carmel, and cinnamon. Cooled they are slightly harder to the tooth, warmed they are like some decadent pastry, almost cloying in their sweetness.

Dates hang from the crown on a date palm. Image Credit: Stan Shebs

Dates, while wonderful by themselves (and in shakes) are used in a huge variety of culinary preparations. While commonly eaten out-of hand dates are also stoned, or pitted and stuffed with a variety of fillings, such as almonds, walnuts, candied orange and lemon peel, marzipan or cream cheese. Dates are used as an additive in beer and fermented into wine. Dates are also chopped and used in a wide range of sweet and savoury dishes, from tagines in Moroccan dishes to traditional puddings, bread, cakes and other dessert items

In today's recipe I offer a wonderful (and spicy) smoky date chutney. Dates make a wonderful base for many chutneys adding a thick body and great base sweetness. Many date based chutneys work well with yogurt, and are wonderful with eggplant and pork dishes.

Spring in Laramie, Wyoming is fickle at best ~ and by the second snow in June it can seem downright elusive. This year, our first in Laramie, winter has seemed particularly dogged in it's cling to our thin air, but in the last 10 days, daytime warmth and the sudden greening of the plains seems to be announcing that summer has at last arrived.

This year we marked Summer twice. Our first attempt, a "Summer Barbecue" over Memorial day weekend was well attended and ended a great success, never mind the wintry chill and icy rain with which it was accompanied. Ultimately the event was hardly the warm outdoor picnic we had all hoped for.

No, it was going to be yet another 10 days, before we would really mark Summer properly. Naomi and I gathered some good friends, crossed our fingers and, took the folks at CajunGrocer.com up on an awesome offer, 10 pounds of live Crawfish shipped overnight and delivered to our doorstep.

Spicy boiled crawfish, smoked sausage and steaming corn, I can't think of a better way of welcoming summer.

Curry Laksa is perhaps one of the most incredible soups that I have ever had. Laksa though now available world over is  originally of Peranakan or Nonya origin. Nonya cuisine combines Chinese, Malay and other influences to create a truly unique, and wonderful mosaic of flavors, and it is my opinion that Nonya cuisine's incredible potential can be fully realized in a bowl of fragrant curry laksa.

The result of a masterful blending of Chinese ingredients and wok cooking techniques with the aromatic and sometimes fierce spices of the Malay community, Nonya recipes are tangy, aromatic, spicy and herbal. Key ingredients in Nonya cooking include coconut milk, galangal (a rhizome similar to ginger), candlenuts which are used as both a flavoring and thickening agent (and it might be noted poisonous uncooked), laksa leaf, a dried fermented shrimp cake called belacan, tamarind juice, turmeric, lemongrass, ginger bud, jicama, kaffir lime leaf, rice noodles (rice stick) and cincaluk - a pungently flavored, sour and salty shrimp-based condiment that that is typically mixed with lime juice, chiles and shallots and eaten with rice.

The curry laksa soup base is stock, coconut milk and a generous but measured amount of laksa paste - a spice paste thickened with candlenuts, which must be boiled well before being eaten.

Peranakan or Nonya cuisine, and curry laksa haven't really be discovered in United States until recently. Laksa has begun to sporadically appear on The Food Network, the Travel Channel and other foodie programs and networks. Laksa made it's most recent appearance on last nights episode (episode 11) of Top Chef on Bravo, with a shrimp laksa made by one of the contestants. Bourdain, after announcing that he "took his laksa seriously"  judged the entry to be too smoky for his taste. Interestingly, it might be noted that Bourdain presumably had his first laksa two seasons back on his traveling foodie show "No Reservations".

I discovered laksa on a trip to visit family in Australia several years ago, where the soup has become as familiar part of the Australian diet, as Vietnamese Pho has in big city America. After my initial introduction I returned with with several recipes for the soup - most notably a recipe from "Spice" by Christine Mansfield, the chef and founder of Paramount restaurant in Sydney. The recipe below is closely based on the Paramount recipe, changed mostly to accommodate for difficulty in finding Nonya ingredients in American groceries. The last time I made up a batch of the paste I ended up driving for 6 hours to an Asian super center in Denver for several of the ingredients.

I serve my Laksa piles high with bean sprouts, laksa leaves (sometimes Vietnamese corriander, or Thai Basil) and fried shallots. I find that the aromatics and texture of these toppings make the soup a wonderful meal in a bowl.

Laksa defines two different types of noodle soup dishes: curry laksa and assam laksa. Curry laksa refers to noodles served in coconut curry soup, while assam laksa refers to noodles served in sour fish soup, and nearly endless variations exist under the two core types. My preference is the curry variation, the Assam variations that I have had are very similar to Thai Tom Yum, though a bit less spicy, and while the soup is great it isn't as rich and fully satisfying as the curry version.

Wikipedia lists three main variants of Curry Laksa:

• Laksa lemak, also known as nyonya laksa (Malay: Laksa nyonya), is a type of laksa with a rich coconut gravy. Lemak is a culinary description in the Malay language which specifically refers to the presence of coconut milk which adds a distinctive richness to a dish. As the name implies, it is made with a rich, slightly sweet and strongly spiced coconut gravy. Laksa lemak is usually made with a fish-based gravy and is heavily influenced by Thai laksa (Malay: Laksa Thai), perhaps to the point that one could say they are one and the same.
• Katong laksa (Malay: Laksa Katong) is a variant of laksa lemak from the Katong area of Singapore. In Katong laksa, the noodles are normally cut up into smaller pieces so that the entire dish can be eaten with a spoon alone (that is, without chopsticks or a fork). Katong laksa is a strong contender for the heavily competed title of Singapore's national dish.
• Sarawak laksa (Malay: Laksa Sarawak) comes from the town of Kuching in the Malaysian state Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. It is actually very different from the curry laksa as the soup contains no curry in its ingredient at all. It has a base of Sambal belacan, sour tamarind, garlic, galangal, lemon grass and coconut milk, topped with omelette strips, chicken strips, prawns, fresh coriander and optionally lime. Ingredients such as bean sprouts, (sliced) fried tofu or other seafood are not traditional but are sometimes added.

Almost two years ago I wrote up an article on a series of experiments I was doing smoking salt. At the time I promised a follow up article posting my results in a "couple of weeks". Clearly it has taken me longer to get here than a couple of weeks, but I didn't want to post on the subject again until I sorted out some of the details and techniques and had a chance to do some research.

The art of salt smoking has prompted more inquiries than any other subject I have posted on Chilefire.com - I have received emails from both professionals interested in marketing their own smoked salt and amateur home smokers interested in making up a batch after having tasted the unique salt, all looking for a web resource on the topic. So, after experimenting for over a year and making up a few batches of really great salts, as well as a few total failures I thought it worth starting up the Salt Smoking Discussion Forum

What I Have Learned - The Basics:

There are six basic recommendations I have for the first time salt smoker outlined below. if you follow these basics you should have decent luck making up some great salts.

1. Use Long Smoke Times
Smoking salt take time, salt doesn't absorb the smoke - or cook and react in the warm environment the same way meats will. Salt absorbs flavor as the smokes resins coats the grains, and this take some time. In my experience, depending on the coarseness of the grain, salt needs at least 4 hours in the smoker, but my best salts spend 24 hours smoking.

2. Use Cool to Medium Heat, and Always Cool Your Salt in the Smoker
Heat is tricky, I have made great salts at regular barbecuing temperatures around 225°but have had better luck when the temperature is even lower. Some folks I have talked to swear by cold smoking, but in my experience anywhere from cold smoked at 85° to regular BBQ temps at 225° work well. If however you get a spike in your temperature to grilling temps - for any length of time you're gonna have to start over - the higher heats will burn off the smoky resins and leave you with salt that pretty much tastes like salt. In short - tend your fire. Finally leave your salt in the smoker until the smoker goes cold. I have 't the slightest idea why this makes a difference, but it does. Salt cooled in the smoker has a better aroma and a smoother smoke flavor, sure it takes longer - but has that ever stopped you before?

3. Soak Your Wood
This is the only time you will ever hear me suggest soaking your wood before you smoke with it. Every time I hear someone on TV or the Web say to soak our wood chips before you put them on your fire it makes me cringe - soaked wood makes nasty, bitter meat in my opinion. However when you're smoking salt - and only when you're smoking salt - it seems to work pretty well. Moisture plays a role in Salt smoking and while I have had some luck with using a pan of boiling water in the coals, my best luck has been when I soaked my wood. With salt it doesn't make for a bitter taste.

4. Use Coarser Salts
Coarser grain salts smoke better. The smoke can move through the grains more easily and the smoke seems to stick to the grains better. I mostly use a grain size I can put in my salt grinder, it seems to work best.

My first smoked salt, a hickory smoked Maldon salt I cold smoked in my old Bradley Electric. The salt lacked the taste and color I was looking for. Time, humidity and temperature all play a role in making good smoked salt.

5. Resist the Urge - Smoking Salt when Your Smoking Other Foods is Not a Good Idea
Fastest way to mess up your smoked salt? Smoke it with a pork butt, a slab of ribs, or god forbid a fillet of salmon. Don't do it! Salt takes up the flavor of cooking meat faster than it does the smoke - and the effect is not good. If you are thinking "oohhh! bacon salt!" this isn't the way to do it, trust me. Yuck.

6. Store Your Product in an Air Tight Container
Finally, when your done, seal the salt in an airtight container. The smoky flavor you have carefully layered into your salt is sensitive to oxygen and looses it's tang, smoke flavor and aroma as the essential oils oxidize and evaporate.. Seal it up tight as soon as it leaves the smoker. I use big mason jars that folks use for canning.

You can find the complete" How-To" I have put together on the Salt Smoking Discussion - including pictures of the rig I am using and the processes that I have used to make my best salts. And if you have smoked salt - please consider joining the group and sharing your experiences, recipes, tips and tricks.

William Fettes Douglas - The Alchemist

The alchemists believed naturally occurring dew contained the divine salt or "thoughts of the One Mind". Dew was likened to Gods sweat, so to tease salt from it would give you quite a condiment indeed.

My first smoked salt: The smoke and taste this salt provides is shocking, just a few grains as a finishing salt has a remarkable impact on flavor.

2 hours of smoke & these crystals are beginning to color a slight amber with deep smoke aroma.

I am surrounded by wisps of the sweet smoke of orange and mesquite woods, it is a windy spring night aboard the boat, blustery, with a slight chill that is unique to spring on the water. Tonight the smoke from the onboard cooker adds gravity to the evening, seemingly weighing down the passage of time.

As Spring opens this year I look forward to more nights like tonight, spending time tending my smokers. In the coming months expect to see a bit more exploration around here on the fine art of wood smoking; tonight I am working something I have never tried in the smoker before,

Salt

Salt is fascinating. Like water, salt is an absolute essential, without it ultimately we will die; and yet natures only guarantee that we seek it out is our "taste" for it. Unlike water, food or air, our bodies do not symptomatically crave it. We go without ever craving it until we become ill, and ultimately die.

This basic relationship we have with salt has created an incredible and epic history. Politics, religion, science, human history is as intimately intertwined with salt as our biology; and culture is full of hidden references to salt that we take for granted in today's relatively salt rich world.

Roman soldiers were paid at least partly in salt, it was their salarium, or 'worth in salt'. The tradition of paying soldiers in salt is not at all unusual, It is said to be from this that we get the word soldier - 'sal dare', meaning to give salt. In many times and places around the world salt has been used as currency. In Latin, salt is Sal which is the root for many familiar words, including Salary, Sale, and even Salvation. The Bible makes a number of references to salt, and generally held it to be incorruptible - thus a covenant of salt is one that can not be broken [2 Chronicles 13:5]. (1) Salt is strongly symbolic in Judaism and Islam as well and appears equally in eastern religions.

This is illustrated by a story in the Hindu "Chandogya Upanisad" which is one of the oldest and largest works of Hindu mystical teachings. “A boy at the age of 12 years left his family to learn from a school. On returning at the age of 24, the young man's father realized that his son had learned the scriptures without understanding the nature of Brahman. He therefore asked his son to sprinkle some salt in a glass of water. The next day the father asked his son to find the salt in the water. As the salt had dissolved, the search proved to be futile. The father asked his son to taste the water from the top, middle and bottom of the glass and asked him how it had tasted. The son replied salty and the father asked where is the salt the son replied he could not see the salt. His father replied that just in the same way you cannot see the spirit, the Brahman, which encompasses the universe but it is there. That is the reality, that is the truth and you are that truth”.

Salt was used symbolically in a very similar way in the middle East and West in the traditions of alchemy. Alchemy, in it's most common and romanticized understanding is of course, the pseudo-science of "transmutation", of changing of lead into gold. Alchemy however was also the foundation of what led ultimately to what has become modern Western science.

The alchemists believed naturally occurring dew contained the divine salt or "thoughts of the One Mind". Dew was likened to Gods sweat, so to tease salt from it would give you quite a condiment indeed.

The Art of Smoking Salt

I have scoured the web looking for information on smoking salt but thus far I have been unable to find anything of interest or utility. Smoked salts are beginning to appear on shop shelves however, being offered by 4 or 5 different salt crafter's. Rather than pay the $15.00 an ounce that Whole Foods was asking, I decided to try to make it myself. What I have come to find is that smoking salt is something of an art.

While I have many many times cooked with salt, this last week has been the first time I have cooked salt, and my first experiments have been of mixed results. My very first try I smoked kosher salt for about two hours in a hot ( 225° +) smoker, with a pan of water, orange wood chips following the smoking of a rack of lamb. We didn't try the salt until the next day , and when we did, it was amazing! The smoked salt brought a really pure smoke flavor to whatever it was sprinkled on.

I have spent the last several days trying to reproduce the same thing again, with significantly less luck. I am not sure what it was that I did right that first time, but I have been unable to reproduce the effects, so I am going to get more systematic going forward. I received neary 7 pounds of salt in the mail today, just over a pound and a half of Maldon sea salt, and about 5 pounds of Himalayan pink salt. I am planning on working a series of small batches until I have mastered it and I will post the results and the methods I find successful here.

My goal is to create a series of finishing salts from different woods. My first experience with smoked salt suggested that salt is a unique carrier of the smoke flavor, and I would like to make a set of jars, each containing a sample of salt from a different wood, hickory and mesquite are what I am working with until I have a system down; alder, orange, cherry, lemongrass, and cedar are to follow.

I have several basic experiments I am going to try going forward:

• Cold smoking a batch of 12 salt samples measuring 1 tablespoon each for 24 hours, removing one sample every 2 hours to find the best length of time for smoking without heat.
• Hot smoking (without steam pan) a similar batch following the same procedures as above but at 255°
• Hot smoking (with steam pan) and another batch following the same procedures as above but at 255°

This will hopefully send me in a good direction in terms of time and leaning toward hot or cold smoking. I am adding the with and without steam pan smokings to try to gauge humidity into my results. I intuitively believe that water will effect the absorption and taste of the salt. Salt and water just interact chemically too much for this not to have an effect - I have no idea which will create a better result.

The other thing I am going to try is an in smoker evaporative salt forming: boiling a cup of salt into a cup of water, and evaporating it back to salt crystals inside the smoker. This experiment would take too long for me to try it it with different techniques very quickly, so I am going start by tasting the water from the steam pan in my hot smoking experiment decribed above; marking the quality of the taste of the water as time passes, and graph when the water becomes too smoky or bitter. Then I will use the resulting time line to as a starting point for my evaporative salt forming; removing the smoke when the brine has reached the best time suggested by the graph.

Read "Experiments Smoking Salt: Part II"

I would love to be able say that I don't fall for gadgets. The thing is I do, and in general I end up not liking them. I have basically never found a "handheld" to be of any use at all. I just don't pick it up, they have a terrible interface,and are just not pleasing to use. ick. Thing is, I own two of them.

In my kitchen, I don't actually have all that many gadgets. A few, that work, I do keep handy. For instance, I love my silicone spatula that I can stick in a fire and scoop out molten lead with (ok, but almost!). I like my fancy lemon zester, my bread machine, and... I do have a waffle iron. After that, its all woks and pans and knives, the essentials.

The Flexicado™ is a gadget. No question. but is it a nice one? like my ginger grater, or a another piece of junk, Like... every pepper grinder I have ever owned. After my first two uses, I think it might actually be a keeper. I picked it up after reading a review that mentioned in a magazine, and I thought - "I have to have one of those!" A trip to Sur La Table and $5.20 cents later I had one.

$5.20. That's a great price. I thought well, if this thing is junk, at least it isn't Krups junk. It's more like fru fru fancy overindulgent coffee drink junk. So I went straight to Harris Teeter and picked out 2 miracle perfect avocados.

Last night I used it the first time. The body of the Flexicado™ is made from flexible nylon, so that it can change size to help follow out the shape of the avocado; this is about 85% effective and on smaller avocados it works fairly well. On larger avocados you may need to make a second pass.

IF you are a big avocado fan the Flexicado™ is pretty cool. For salads and Guacamole this will save you time. The slices are a bit rough around the edges, though I imagine that I will get better at using it. I do fear that the nylon is going to get dull but I will have to see how it stands up to use.

First Impression: Good, though pretty function specific. Materials are a little lighter that they could be (thinking stainless spring steel and wire...) works pretty well, and has a low space impact. Probably floats (important on a boat), and looks pretty cool. I think I will probably use it until it gets dull, won't throw it away for too long, and then won't get another one.

So I am starting with the Santa Fe School of Cooking powders because they come in stainless steel resealable tins. Really it is more like a small paint can, but it's nice. I have been ordering this chile powder from the school's store for 2 years now, and each time I finish a can it is months before I can bring myself to toss out the tin. The tins are really nice.

The New Mexico chile comes in many different varieties. The most popular mild pepper is the NuMex conquistador, which is great for chiles rellenos. The NuMex sweet variety is used like a bell or anaheim pepper, as it has little or no heat at all. The NuMex Joe E. Parker is a medium-hot pepper that is excellent for salsas. And for the serious chileheads, there's the Sandia, a very hot southern variety, that is used in many green chiles that you will find throughout New Mexico.

My father has loved Tabasco Sauce for years, and for almost as long I have been trying to convince him that while there is a place for Tabasco - it isn't on everything you want hot; because when you add Tabasco you also add a lot of vinegar, and in my opinion at least, scrambled eggs just aren't any better with vinegar on them - even if it is spicy vinegar.

Recently though my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco (which isn't really Tabasco anymore now is it?) In the last 2 or 3 years chipotle chiles have become very popular. A restaurant chain carries the name, and endless products containing some variation of the smoked chile have been put on the market, from sauces to mustards. When my father switched from regular Tabasco to Chipotle Tabasco - I saw my chance to introduce Los Chilernos Chipotle powder as an alternative to his vinegar habit.

I have tried a couple of chipotle powders and so far this is the best I have found (though the search continues!) Los Chilernos advertises itself as providing the ingredients for "gourmet" southwestern cuisine and in terms of chile powder so far as I have tried, they do sell a high grade set of products.

This powder is great stuff. The smoke is right up front, it has a sweet smell but the taste is all chile and wood. It is great sprinkled on salads, mixed with a bit of olive oil and used as a bread dip or added to soups and stews to add both heat and a great smoky quality. This chile powder is pretty hot and carries its flavor along way with just a touch, so use it carefully at first until you figure out how much you like.

I had my parents over for dinner on our boat and served a ceasars salad with a light dusting of this chile powder over the top, and ended up sending them home with an extra bottle. My dad still hasn't given up on Tabasco Sauce, but he is mixing it up now with this great powder. I totally recomend it. You can find Los Chilernos chile products at Whole Foods Markets, but more often that not they they don't carry the powder in this shaker bottle - the powder is the same either way but the shaker is a nice way of serving it up. You can order it online at http://www.888eatchile.com for about $6.00 a bottle or a 3 pack for about $17.00.

Next Chipotle Powder? Chile Today-Hot Tamale Chipotle Powder.