Ashley mentioned that there has readers and our friends alike requested the recipe from our fun post-race Mexican dinner on Sunday night.
I’m happy to oblige as I loved the final result! I’ll first say that I’ve never really studied Mexican cooking; I just love it and have always experimented with it. I do really want to learn more including how to cook the many delicious braises that are always bursting with flavor and spice. That said, one of my go-to simple and incredibly delicious Mexican dishes is chicken fajitas with fresh pico de gallo.
You can make these with any part of the chicken but if you want to keep it super lean and healthy, I recommend boneless, skinless breasts. One of the keys to good chicken fajitas (especially if you use boneless breast) is a good marinade. The other keys are very fresh ingredients and just a little patience when it comes to prep work.
Chicken Fajitas with Fresh Pico de Gallo
Ingredients (Makes enough for 4 – 6):
For the Fajitas:
8 small corn or flour fajitas
4 boneless-skinless chicken breasts
2 medium yellow onions
2 bell peppers (color up to you)
Vegetable oil (for sautéing)
For the Marinade:
Juice of 1 Orange
Juice of 1 Lime
4 tablespoons of EVOO
3 tablespoons of fresh minced cilantro (coriander if you’re British)
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of chili-powder
1 tablespoon of fresh minced white onion
1 teaspoon of fresh minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (optional)
Minced jalapeños for extra heat (optional)
For the Pico de Gallo:
Two large tomatoes (diced into small squares)
One Jalapeño Pepper (seeded and minced) (more if you like it spicy)
One small white onion (minced)
1 garlic clove (minced)
Juice of 1/2 – 1 lime (to taste)
Minced cilantro (to taste – I like lots, like a half a bunch you would buy at the grocery store)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1) Combine marinade ingredients in a glass bowl or a Ziplock bag. With a sharp knife, pierce the chicken breast a few times so that the marinade fully penetrates the chicken. Place the chicken in the marinade and put in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.
2) While the chicken is marinating, do the rest of the prep work (again, if you might need to have some patience unless you’re really fast with a knife). Start with the onions and the bell peppers. Cut off the tops and bottoms of the onions and slice into strips along the grain (they will soften more easily this way). Then cut the bell peppers in half vertically and seed them. Cut out the top and slice into strips about a half an inch wide. Put the onions and the bell peppers aside separately and proceed with the prep work for the pico de gallo. First, dice the tomatoes. I find it easiest to fist cut the tomatoes vertically and then notch out the tops. Then lay the halves on their sides and slice vertically into strips cutting almost to the root end making sure that the tomato is still together. Then cut one or two slices horizontally again, not all the way through. You should now have a tomato half that can be easily diced simply by cutting vertically across the tomato. Now mince the white onion. Again, one more technique. Peel the onion skin and then cut the onion in half through the root end. Cut the top end off but leave the root end on. Make vertical cuts close together from the tip to close to the root, then slice across the grain to make quick work of the mincing. Finally mince the jalapeño after seeding it (or include the seeds if you like it spicy) but be careful, if you touch any part of your face after mincing a raw jalapeño, IT WILL BURN. Finally, mince the garlic clove in the normal way (really just rapid chopping – if anyone has a great garlic mincing trick please don’t hesitate to share).
3) To assemble the pico, leave the tomatoes in a colander for 30 minutes over a bowl while the juices drain (this is so the pico isn’t too wet). After 15 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients except the lime juice and the salt and pepper and mix together to let the flavors mingle. Finally after another 15 minutes, transfer to a bowl, add the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste.
4) To cook the fajitas, first take the chicken out of the refrigerator, pound the breasts to tenderize them, and slice the chicken into strips. Put a large sauté pan on medium heat and once its heated add a bit of oil and add the onions. Cook the onions until they soften and slightly browned, making sure that they don’t burn. Remove the onions to a bowl and cook the bell peppers in the same way. Finally, turn the heat up to medium-high and cook the chicken pieces until they brown slightly. Deglaze the pan with a little bit of the marinating liquid making certain that it heats up enough to kill any germs (it has been in contact with raw chicken). Add the onions and peppers back to the pan and mix together.
5) Heat the tortillas on a pan and add a bit of the fajita mixture, some pico and a little cheese or sour-cream and a bit of fresh minced cilantro.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of Cooking with Bo. Does anyone have any favorite Mexican recipes that they would like to share? Or recipe requests for next week?
