Chamoy combines jammy fruits with sour citrus, high-acid vinegar and the subtle heat of dried chiles, appearing as a smooth sauce or vibrant red-orange powder. The flavor profile is sour-spicy-sweet and features in desserts, cocktails and street snacks such as icy paletas and micheladas. Chamoy is commonly drizzled over mango, watermelon and other produce, used as a dip for chips or jicama, and adapted into inventive preparations like strawberry chamoy piped onto sorbet or chamoy mixed with pickle brine. The condiment’s origins likely trace to Chinese suan mei brought to Mexico on the Manila galleon.
When Gabriella Gonzalez Martinez was a teenager, she would grab chamoy-flavored candy from the tiendita, a corner store up the street from her high school in a Los Angeles suburb. She still felt the pull of its sour-spicy-sweet tang as an adult living in Portland, Ore. Now a pastry chef, she treats the classic Mexican condiment as an invitation to play in the kitchen.
The magic of chamoy lies in its simple yet striking combination of jammy fruits and sour citrus, along with the high acid of vinegar and the subtle heat of dried chiles, usually in the form of a smooth sauce or vibrant red-orange powder. Chamoy is popular in desserts and cocktails: Here, it's the flavor of the icy paleta and those seasonings are echoed in the drink made with orange, tamarind and chile powder.
It's most commonly drizzled over mango, watermelon or other fruit and vegetables, used as a tangy dip for chips, or rimmed on micheladas, and lends itself to new iterations. At Libre, her mezcal and dessert bar, Ms. Gonzalez Martinez makes a strawberry chamoy thick enough to pipe onto pineapple sorbet and mixes chamoy with pickle brine from a local company for a unique version of pickled chamoy. She's one of many chefs and home cooks who've been using the sauce in imaginative ways for years.
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