I started planning tonight's dinner with a Mexican cookbook open in front of me - in the end the final result came from a midpoint between Mexico and Canada. And it was amazingly tasty.
I had the remains of a can of chipotle chillies in the freezer and a dining partner who was very keen on eating them. None of the recipes in my Mexican cookbook inspired me today so I jumped into Google and came across this recipe for Chipotle-Maple Barbecue Chicken.
Didn't have any chicken pieces but I had a nice fillet of pork just waiting to be enjoyed. I took my inspiration very much from the recipe and tweaked it a little to suit my audience.
I had the time to brine the pork - and having never done this before I seized the moment. I put about 1/8 cup of salt and 1/8 cup caster sugar in 500L of cold water and stirred it all until the solids dissolved. Plonked the pork in the jug of brine and left it on the bench for about an hour. Patted it dry and then into a hot frying pan, smeared with a bit of the sauce. I put a little more of the sauce on the pork as it was cooking - enough to caramelise a little. Went the pork was ready, I let it rest a little then sliced it and poured over a couple of generous spoonfuls of the sauce.
It was definitely worth it - the meat was tender and juicy. My companion claimed he could taste the sugar from the brine in the pork - I didn't get that at all, just tasty moist meat.
As for the sauce, this is what I did: I put about 1/3 cup tinned chipotle chillies in a blender with four smashed garlic cloves, 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, about 1/2 cup maple flavoured syrup, 4 tbsp. white wine vinegar and a tup of tomato paste. Whizzed it all up and then put it in a saucepan with about 50g butter and a tin of crushed tomatoes.
I let it simmer for a while to reduce a little and added a bit of smoked paprika to increase the smokiness. The kitchen smelt wonderful.
I now have a couple of jars of wonderful smoky-sweet tangy sauce and a well fed and happy husband who is insisting on having chipotles in the house, all the time, under every circumstance.
