Chicken with Pineapple-Mango-Chipotle Barbecue Sauce

Morita chiles are red, fully mature Chipotles. This gives them a unique, medium – hot smokey flavor which is popular in many Southwestern dishes. These can be added to sauces (including Mole) to add smokey flavor and maintain the red color of the sauces. These peppers are about 2-4 inches in length, 1 inch in width, and have a deep brick reddish brown color. The word Chipotle translated to smoked chile. Consider the Chipotle a 6.5 on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the hottest). Scoville heat units 7,000-25,000.

Suggested Use:
Use Morita in enchilada sauces, chili, stews, barbecue ribs, and corn bread. Their smoky quality combines well with poultry, meats and fall squash.

Heat Scale
Submit Recipe

Ingredients:

1 shallot
5 chipotles, rehydrated in hot water, then drained (about ⅓ cup-use 3 for less kick)
¼ cup honey
2 cloves garlic
1½ – 2 cups frozen mango and pineapple pieces
4 tablespoons cider vinegar
½ cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
¼ cup lightly-packed brown sugar (light brown)
1 whole chicken, cut up or 8-10 chicken pieces (I used 2 half breasts, 3 thighs and 3 drumsticks)
salt, to taste

Instructions:

Serves: 4

To prepare the barbecue sauce, place all the ingredients from the shallot to the brown sugar in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. I warmed mine up over the stove just to get a better idea of how it would taste once cooked but you don’t have to do this. Feel free to adjust by increasing or reducing the amount of chipotle peppers, vinegar and/or sugar to suit your taste.

Prep the chicken pieces by rinsing and drying them with paper towels. Season with salt.

To marinate, toss the chicken pieces in about 2 cups of the barbecue sauce in a large bowl and save the remaining for serving. Marinate for at least 4 hours (better overnight).

To bake the chicken (you can grill them, too), preheat your oven to 375℉. Tip: You should take the chicken out of the refrigerator about one hour before you plan to bake or grill it to allow it some time to come to room temperature. Arrange the chicken pieces on a baking sheet and bake for about 35 minutes. If you want a browner exterior, set the chicken pieces under a broiler for just a couple of minutes until you get some charring on top. Serve warm with the remaining sauce.

Notes:
This makes about 3 cups barbecue sauce which will leave about 1 cup extra for serving with the cooked chicken.

From lemonsandanchovies.com