Food Break: Fresh and Spicy and Smoky Chicken Tacos

I haven't really played a lot of games lately.  I've been mostly stressing about my professional life, finishing up things so I can move on to bigger and better things.  Then blowing off steam playing Magic the Gathering every Friday night.  Not really a whole lot of my game-playing friends are left in town, and I too will be moving on soon.

One thing I still have to do is eat.  And I LOVE TACOS! 
Seriously, I make them in some form or another every other week.  Homemade tacos are pretty great.

I thought I'd share a recipe for spicy shredded chicken tacos with you.  It's one of my favorites now.  Sadly, it's very time consuming to do it right.  Took me about 2 hours to makes these, but totally worth it.

As a warning, I don't cook with measurements.  I just add stuff in amounts that seem about right.  This isn't baking.  Exact amounts don't matter.  As long as you don't go overboard on things like salt or spicy things, you can always adjust later.

I started out with some chicken thighs.  Amount: Some.

Chicken thighs I find have a deeper flavor, stay moist, and stew better than chicken breasts.  Also, they are cheap.  That might be the real reason I used them. 

I browned them up in a cast iron skillet with a little oil after seasoning them well with salt and pepper.  Cast iron skillets are cool.  In the "awesome" sense.  They actually get pretty hot.

Sizzle.

Sizzle sizzle.

I didn't fully cook the chicken at this point, because it's going to finish up later.

Then I removed the chicken and scraped up the delicious chickeny bits in the pan so they wouldn't burn but still let them float around in the pan because they are flavory bits.  

Next, I threw in a couple tomatoes and husked tomatillos.  Tomatoes are tomatoey, as one would expect from tomatoes.  Tomatillos, however, add a fresh, tart acidity to the tacos which will brighten your day, I swear.

 

Then gotten let those tomatoes and their tart green cousins get all toasty and blistered and a little soft.

 

Followed the softened veggies (maybe fruits?  I dunno really) with some chopped onions, chopped garlic, dried cascabel chilis, dried arbol chilis, chipotle powder, and dried oregano.

You could imagine using any peppers you want, though I wouldn't skip on the chipotle, powdered or canned or fresh doesn't matter so much as long as that smokey pepper dude wiggles its flavor into there somehow.

Also, I probably should've taken the seeds out from the dried peppers.  I'm okay with really spicy, but not everyone is and these were pushing it. 

Once things got all soft and toasty, I added the chicken back in and filled up the pan almost covering everything with low sodium chicken stock and a couple splashes of red wine vinegar.

 

Cooked on medium-ish heat or something.  Until the chicken was fully cooked.

Then I removed the chicken once again, and shredded it up.

And now the wait begins.  Continued bubbling the stock and veggies until everything reduced down to thick and almost goopy.

 

This took quite a while.  I was hungry.  Chips and salsa to hold off the tummy growls!

Got the little bowls at Crate and Barrel.  Love that place.  And the bowls are super cute.

 

Then things got fun again.  Once the sauce was thick and reduced, I threw it in my blender to grind up all the chunks into a smoother, thicker sauce.  With minor chunks.

 

Finally, I threw in the shredded chicken and mixed it all up.  Yum yum!

 

Served with cheese and cilantro and some lime juice squeeze on corn tortillas.

I added some sour cream on my second helping.

 

Then I had more for lunch again the next day.  And the next day.  Delicious every day.

I HIGHLY recommend these tacos if you are a taco person who likes tacos.  Go make and eat some tacos, next time you are in the mood for tacos.