Pollo Chipotle

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There’s a time and place for the numbered dishes on a Mexican restaurant menu—you know what I mean, the #11 combo platter of one crunchy taco, one burrito and one enchilada, with a side of rice and flavorless refried beans. For me, the time was in my younger years, before I learned to appreciate the Mexican specialty dishes as I do today, and the place was (obviously) an actual restaurant, which I don’t frequent as much as I did in those days because, frankly, we prefer the food we make at home. It has only been recently that I started considering how to make some of our favorite Mexican meals, and those favorites seldom include items from the numbered combo section, and never any crunchy, from-a-box taco shells that I used to associate with Mexican “cuisine.” It’s funny how much has changed.

At one of our favorite local places, called Señor Bravo, the pollo chipotle is the special menu item that always wins over my husband, Les. The chicken (or pollo, if you wish) is tender and bite sized, and it’s drenched in a spicy sauce that has enough smoky chipotle to warrant being part of the dish’s name, but also enough rich cream to soften the edges and give the dish a special flair. I have tried several times to make this dish at home, and on previous attempts found it difficult to replicate the flavor and texture. It seemed something was missing so I fiddled with the cooking process, added ingredients and spices, tried different types of cream—from half and half to heavy cream—and every addition made it less and less like the restaurant dish. Finally, I dialed it all back and kept it simple. Turns out, simplicity was exactly and only what it needed.

Besides being simple and delicious, this dish is also relatively healthy, as I used cream cheese rather than heavy cream to thicken the spicy sauce. This eliminated the need for flour as a thickening agent. And for our at-home pollo chipotle, I jazzed up a simple pot of brown rice with a shake of cumin and a small handful of chopped cilantro and served it alongside a simple salad with fresh tomato and slices of ripe avocado.

Ingredients

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 Tbsp. expeller-pressed canola oil

1/2 large yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves fresh garlic, smashed and sliced

3/4 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. sweet Spanish paprika

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

Several twists of freshly ground black pepper

1 or 2 Tbsp. pureed chipotle with adobo sauce* (see recipe notes)

1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth*

A couple of pinches of dried Mexican oregano*

4 Tbsp. cream cheese, room temperature

*Recipe Notes

The chipotle puree is best prepared in advance, and you may want to start with one tablespoon and adjust up to taste. To make the puree, empty the entire contents of a small can of chipotles in adobo sauce into a food processor or blender. If your processor has a small bowl insert, that will be the perfect size. Pulse a few times, then run the machine continuously until the sauce is completely smooth.

You’ve seen cans of chipotles in the Mexican aisle, no doubt. Use a food processor to transform it to puree.
At the end of the post, I’ll share a few other recipes to help you use the rest of it.

I prefer the more complex flavor of vegetable broth in most recipes, but for this dish, you could certainly use chicken broth. I would still recommend a low-sodium version, as this helps with controlling the overall amount of sodium in the dish.

Low-sodium vegetable broth is one of the most versatile ingredients in my pantry. If you prefer, use chicken broth.

Mexican oregano is very different from the easier-to-find Mediterranean oregano you are probably accustomed to using. It’s part of the verbena family, with a citrusy, slightly floral flavor. Search it out in an ethnic supermarket, at Whole Foods or the international spice section of World Market. If you can’t get Mexican oregano, dried marjoram would be a better substitute than regular oregano.

To make the cilantro rice, simply cook a batch of your favorite brown rice according to package instructions. Use vegetable broth rather than water for more flavor. Stir in salt, pepper, a few shakes of ground cumin and a small handful of fresh, chopped cilantro leaves before serving.

Why serve ordinary rice, if you can make it more flavorful with so little effort?

Instructions

  • The seasonings for pollo chipotle are surprisingly simple. As with any recipe, it’s best to get all the prep work done before you start cooking.
  • This recipe uses a quarter of a standard package of cream cheese. Measure it by eye by marking half the brick, then half of that. Cut the cubes in half for 4 tablespoons.
  • Sprinkle the dry seasonings onto the onions and stir to combine them evenly.
  • Freezing the chicken breasts for a few minutes makes them firmer and easier to slice. They should be evenly sliced, about 1/4″ thick.
  • Add the chicken a little at a time, to avoid abruptly dropping the temperature of the skillet.
  • Toss the chicken slices to cook them evenly. Aim to remove the pink color, but don’t brown the chicken.
  • Add a spoonful of the chipotle puree to start, and adjust to taste later if you like it hotter.
  • Add the broth to the skillet and stir gently to evenly distribute the chipotle puree. Let it come to a slight boil, then reduce the heat to simmer.
  • Allow the mixture to simmer for a while before adding the Mexican oregano.
  • When chicken is very tender and the liquid is reduced to half its original volume, add the cream cheese pieces.
  • Swirl in one tablespoon of cream cheese at a time, and watch it emulsify into the sauce.
  • It’s creamy and thickened, but without the use of flour or heavy cream. The slight tang of the cream cheese is a nice touch, too.
  • This is every bit as delicious as the pollo chipotle in our favorite local Mexican restaurant, and easy to make at home for Cinco de Mayo.
Pollo ChipotlePrint it!

Looking for ways to use the rest of the chipotle puree?

Smoky Chipotle Mac & Cheese

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It only ranks third in America’s overall favorite comfort food (behind pizza and burgers), but here in the South, mac and cheese reigns supreme. It was the first dish I posted on Comfort du Jour when I finally got the nerve to start my blog and, as you can see, we enjoy making fun variations of it at our house! This simple, versatile side dish is like a blank canvas—you can apply so many flavors to it and, with all the different pasta shapes available, hardly ever have a repeat.

The main thing you need for super creamy mac and cheese is a velvety base, and for me, that means a bechamel—which is just a fancy French word that describes “white sauce.” Bechamel is one of the five so-called mother sauces, because it serves so many purposes. The key ingredients of a classic Bechamel are butter and flour (cooked together in equal parts), and milk. The fat in the butter coats the starch in the flour, and the resulting paste serves to thicken whatever liquid is added to it—in this case, milk.

This butter-flour magic is called a “roux,” and it’s one of the first things I remember really learning from time spent in my grandmother’s kitchen. When she first told me about this important technique, I thought Gram was calling it “Roo”—like Kanga’s baby from the Winnie and the Pooh books (that’s how young I was). Since that very early lesson, I’ve learned how to spell roux, and how to adjust it for different applications.

The intensity of cooking on the roux changes its properties, and you can easily use this to your advantage, based on what you are making. For a thick, creamy white sauce, cook the flour in the butter over medium heat, just long enough to achieve a foamy appearance, then add milk all at once and whisk until it is thickened. Season it with salt and pepper, perhaps a little grated nutmeg (essential, in my opinion, for a real bechamel) or another seasoning you like, to match how you plan to use it. If I were to layer this creamy sauce with thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes and onions, I might substitute ground cumin for the nutmeg, because I love the flavor of cumin with potatoes. Slide that into the oven for about an hour, and you’d be enjoying scalloped potatoes. Melt cheese into the sauce before layering, and you’d have potatoes au gratin.

Cook the flour and butter a bit longer to the point of being brown and toasty-looking, and you’ll have a roux with more complex flavor, but slightly less thickening power. This is what I usually do when I make mac and cheese, because I don’t need the bechamel to be quite as thick on its own (the melted-in cheese makes up for that), and because the browned butter in the base lends a warm, nutty aroma and flavor to the dish.

The butter and flour create a paste that will thicken whatever liquid you add to it.

Incidentally, it does not have to be real butter. A roux can be made with any type of fat, including plant-based butters, cooking oil or even lard or bacon grease. I have also found success using gluten-free flour, as there is usually enough starch in it to produce similar results as one made with regular, all-purpose flour. I have even read that almond flour can be used in roux (though I have not tested this). As long as the starch and fat molecules play nice, you’ll end up with a roux that will thicken. 

For a roux with even more heft and complexity, such as for gumbo, cook the flour in oil rather than butter, and do it low and slow—even in the oven, if you want to go hands-free—and you’ll have a developed flavor that can’t be equaled with any add-in ingredient. More on that another day. 😊

The dish I’m sharing today is another spin on my basic mac and cheese, with the addition of chipotle, one of the most favored flavors at our house. Though a subtle touch of chipotle could be added with a few sprinkles of ground chipotle powder (either before or after the cheese is added to the roux), I’ve opted to use a couple of spoonsful of pureed chipotle with adobo sauce. These are the little cans you find in the “international” section of the supermarket. Chipotle peppers are essentially dried, smoked jalapenos that have been rehydrated to a plump state. We dump the entire contents of a small can into the food processor, to be used in a variety of Mexican-themed dishes, including Les’s Smoky Guacamole and my South of the Border Crab Cakes.

For this batch of mac and cheese, I chose whole grain rotini because of its heft and texture. When you choose a pasta with lots of surface area, you should expect to adjust the pasta-to-sauce ratio (all those twists and curves are going to need extra sauce). I topped the dish with a mixture of crushed crispy fried jalapenos (from Trader Joe’s) and plain panko breadcrumbs.

As for the cheese, I went with a medium-sharp cheddar as the main flavor, but the base cheese is yellow American. You probably already know that very sharp cheeses do not melt as well as their milder counterparts. And I’m sure you know about the exquisite melting qualities of American cheese, despite its bad rap, which is not fairly earned.

Saying “American cheese is not cheese” is like saying “meatloaf is not meat.”

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt


Ingredients

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1/2 large onion, diced fairly fine

3 Tbsp. salted butter

4 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

6 oz. yellow American cheese, cubed* (see notes)

10 oz. medium-sharp yellow cheddar, shredded

2 Tbsp. chipotle w/ adobo puree (more or less, depending on your tolerance for heat)

A few shakes of ground cumin, for added smokiness

Salt and pepper to taste

2/3 lb. whole grain rotini (if using smoother pasta, use an entire pound)

Topping:

1/3 cup crispy fried jalapenos (or fried onions, if you prefer less heat)

1/4 cup plain panko breadcrumbs

*Notes

I used to think that American cheese was fake food, but this article on Serious Eats convinced me otherwise. Yes, it is processed, but it is not made up of ingredients and chemicals pretending to be cheese. It is real cheese, processed with special salts to result in a smooth, creamy texture when melted. I do not feel this way about the brand that begins with a V (and I think you all know which one I’m referring to), but I am OK with American cheese now and then, and I consider it essential as a melting base for my mac and cheese. Yeah, what J. Kenji said.

If you have an immersion blender, I encourage you to take the step I’ll describe for whipping your cheese sauce into ultra-creamy territory. It is optional, of course, but a total game changer in my mac and cheese endeavors.

Instructions

  • Cooking the onions and garlic into the roux ensures layers of flavor.
  • If you intend to use the immersion blender on the sauce, remove half of the onions to stir into it later. The remaining half will get pulverized into the creamy sauce.
  • When the butter is nice and bubbly, sprinkle in the flour and whisk to combine. Cook it until the whole mixture is bubbly again.
  • Add the milk, all at once or in batches, as you wish. I generally do half at a time for easier whisking.
  • The fat-and-flour roux mixture thickens the milk into a flavorful sauce that’s perfect as a base for mac and cheese.
  • American cheese melts up super creamy and smooth and yes, it is real cheese. It’s just processed with special salts that change the structure of the fat molecules.
  • Sharper cheeses in general do not melt as smoothly as milder cheese. For this mac and cheese, I chose a medium sharp cheddar and shredded it myself.
  • The amount of chipotle puree is directly related to your tolerance for heat. My husband and I both love the flavor and spice, so I used 3 tablespoons.
  • The chipotle really gave the cheese sauce a boost in color as well as flavor!
  • This is optional, of course, but I do love hitting my cheese sauce with an immersion blender. The resulting sauce is unbelievably creamy.
  • Time to add the reserved onions back into the sauce.
  • All the twists and curves in this pasta choice will have an impact on my finished dish.
  • You have one chance to get seasoning into your cooked pasta. Be generous with the salt in your cooking water!
  • Cook your pasta just shy of al dente if you plan to bake the mac and cheese, because it will continue to cook in the sauce during baking.
  • Transfer the cheesy goodness into an oven-safe baking dish. This recipe is good for an 8″ square dish.
  • For most of my mac and cheese dishes, I like to add a crunchy topping. This time, I reached for these crispy jalapeno pieces from Trader Joe’s.
  • Pulse them in the food processor, then pulse in a handful of plain panko crumbs for extra texture.
  • Just before baking, top the mac and cheese with the jalapeno-panko crumbs. Cover the pan with foil and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 20 to 30.
  • When the mac and cheese is baked, the hot sauce will bubble up around all the edges of the pan. The topping should be golden and crispy.
Smoky Chipotle Mac and CheesePrint!
Smoky Chipotle Mac & Cheese!