This is a sauce for chipotle chiles. It can be added to soups, used as a fiery hot salsa, put on anything from eggs to rice to mashed potatoes or mashed sweet potatoes.

You could use:

• about 10 dried chipotle, stemmed but not seeded, chopped
• roughly diced white onion
• about a 1/4 cup of cider or wine vinegar
• as much garlic as you like or more
• either fresh diced plum tomatoes(with skin and seeds) or even tinned tomatoes
• kosher or sea salt, fresh black pepper
• water or red wine to cover

Just put everything to together in a pan, bring to a boil, then reduce and cover for an hour to an hour and a half. You could puree this if you wanted to.
Of course, the adobo sauce will only be enriched by adding some dried oregano or sage.

This spicy red chile marinade is very popular in Northern New Mexico and Texas, where it's made locally with 100 percent caribe chiles. I have toned this recipe down a bit because caribe chiles are so spicy. The conquistadors brought the seeds and chiles given them by the Caribe Indians to Northern New Mexico. For this reason, the sauce is also known as conquistador sauce or marinade. Originally, this sauce was used only as a marinade for pork.

Adobo Sauce

Makes about 4 cups.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup crushed caribe chiles.
• 1/2 cup ground pure mild chiles.
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled.
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin.
• 2 teaspoons ground Mexican oregano.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.
• 4 cups water.

Directions

Place all ingredients in a blender in the order given; process until combined. Use as a marinade for chicken, pork, or seafood.