Chicken Tacos

No pictures, I was overlapping with two other things.

First try at anything like this. I examined a number of recipes on the Internet before deciding what to do.

Boil a pound of chicken meat with half a chopped onion and some chopped garlic, in just enough water to cover. Get it thoroughly cooked, we’re going to pull it off the bone and shred it anyway. I used boneless breasts since we had a spare pound, but cheaper cuts with bones will probably work better. Remember that I specified the amount of meat, so compute properly if using cuts with bones and skin. Drain, save the cooking liquid. (Half an hour is about minimum, more like an hour is better for the texture we want.)

Cool and shred the meat. Discard bones and skin and lumps in the broth.

Saute a couple of minced onions and some garlic in oil. Add 1/2tsp cumin seed and 1/2tsp ground coriander.

Add 1 cup diced tomato.

Add one 7oz can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced. I couldn’t find the dried peppers. I’d like to develop this recipe to not use this bit of processed food, and would definitely like the result to be less sweet.

Add perhaps half the broth from boiling the chicken; don’t make it too soupy.

Add the shredded chicken meat.

Cook for a while (an hour or a bit might be good if you have time). Salt to taste (I believe I used about 1/4tsp). Top up with broth if it gets too dry. You can cook much less, practically just enough to warm the meat and get it coated with sauce, if you have to.

Serve in soft corn tortillas.

Good with sour cream. Good with avocado.

The result was pretty good, and popular with those at the table. I found it good, but too sweet, and maybe too smoky (chipotle are smoked jalapeño). Fixing that would mean finding the dried pepper, and making my own sauce around them, which I’ll certainly do if I can find them.

We got two dinners and 4 lunches out of this, looks like.

Lentil Cassoulet

I made an old recipe I can’t find the written form of again after years, and rather like the way it came out, so it seems wise to document it. I got the original from my mother, who says she got it from Julia Child, but I couldn’t find anything I recognize as being this recipe in the two basic Child volumes.

Continue reading Lentil Cassoulet

Beef and Carrot Curry with Raisins

I just dug out of my memory, and made for the first time in ages, a recipe I made up a long, long time ago. It’s not much like anything I’d ever had before or since, though of course all the elements are things common to real-world cuisines. It has received generally favorable reactions over the years. Continue reading Beef and Carrot Curry with Raisins