This blog serves to offer insight and (hopefully) a bit of wisdom while we all cook together. You’ll find delightful weeknight recipes (such as this Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad!) and a handful of growing-up lessons as I (try to) learn them. It’s time for a blog that is accessible, without quite as many paragraphs of backstory for a simple recipe, so buckle up and enjoy!
Background
Without a to-do list for this life, choices do not tick away a path unless you lay it. I was a serial brick layer for my first twenty years, but I am learning the power of setting the recipe on fire and sprinkling its ashes on your morning cereal.
A fabulous cook rarely makes a recipe unless asked for it. Ingredients fall into their places like destiny, more like a church choir than an improv group, though that is what they are. Flavors are born and grow under watchful eye and a meal is born that only that cook, that version of them from that day, could possibly make. This is where food becomes love, sharing, experience.
Tonight’s Dinner
Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad
Active Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
For Chicken
1/4ish big yellow onion, chopped
1lb ground chicken
Some minced garlic
Like a tbsp of chili powder
A couple tsp of cayenne powder
2 tbsp diced chipotle peppers
Also 2 tbsp gochujang-style Korean hot sauce (no for real, it’s nice and tomato-y and works as a killer tomato paste substitute in pretty much any savory dish)
Salt, pepper to taste
Lemon juice! Like 2 tbsp
For Pico de Gallo
The rest of the half of onion, chopped
2 ripe tomatoes
1 entire bunch of cilantro, chopped fine
A tiny bit of minced garlic
Crushed red pepper, cayenne pepper (or (much) better yet, use real jalapeños, but I was out)
Salt, pepper to taste
Lemon juice! 1-3 tbsp
Optional
Guacamole (I cheated, used store bought. If you want to make your own is avocado, lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and tenacity)
Lettuce of choice
Sour Cream
Shredded Cheese
Sombrero
Tortillas
Instructions
Taste often, using clean spoons as necessary. My mom says using the same spoon to taste throughout the dish means it was “made with love” but this is your choice.
- Chop half of a big yellow onion, setting some aside in a medium bowl for Pico de Gallo. Sauté the rest over medium heat with cooking oil of your choice.
- Once onion in pan is translucent, or you realize your pan is too hot when the onion starts to brown, add ground chicken and all other chicken ingredients except the lemon juice.
- Break up chicken and stir the goodness in. If it doesn’t smell smoky, add more chipotle peppers. If it doesn’t smell spicy, then it needs more cayenne pepper. If it isn’t red enough to look almost authentic if you squint, add more gochujang sauce. Go with your instincts here, your heart knows what your stomach wants.
- The ground chipotle chicken is cooked when the cooking sound is dry but uproarious applause. At this point, turn heat to low, add lemon juice, and stir until the chicken stops sizzling.
- While making your chicken, work on the Pico. Mix all ingredients and taste. The only rule is to stop adding heat (spices or jalapeños) BEFORE it is at your desired spiciness. As it sits, it will continue to get a bit spicier. Let this sit for like 10 minutes on the counter while everything else finishes up. This is also a rule, so I guess two rules for the Pico.
- At last, serve as a salad, a taco, or something else entirely.
