Thursday, April 26, 2012

Perfect Chicken Tacos

I love Mexican food....and not just a little.  My mom made tacos like the commercials; ready made shells, hamburger, etc. Once I discovered fried tacos, it was all over.  Now, no judgement if you are one of the many who still rip the plastic off the tray and use ready made taco shells.  However, if you try these and go back to them, then yeah, let the judgement ensue. I have made these on several occasions and they are eaten usually while standing because the eaters can't wait...they stand there, that chicken juice / salsa water running down their drunk ass faces, telling me how delicious they are.  
And there I stand,  Queen of the Tacos, nodding royally to my faithful subjects.  

I call these Perfect Chicken Tacos.  They are perfect because they are a) delicious b) the meat ridiculously easy to make...as in, if you fucked it up, you should probably stay away from knives and be careful when you pet small animals.  Note: if I know you and you do somehow manage to fuck these up, let me know.  I will take great joy in calling you Lenny.  Forever. c) my entire family eats them with out one of them* begging for Cheerios.  
The Pioneer Woman also has a recipe for Perfect Chicken Tacos.  
They are the same in that they are both fried but there are differences
 in the meat and method.  
Also, when it comes to cooking, she's more 'aw shucks' and I'm more 'aw fuck'. 
 I like her, but I think my tacos are better.

*My daughter.

Guide to Creating Perfect Chicken Tacos

Buy some cheap, boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  No, not breasts, they will get too dry.  Thighs.  This time, I bought about 2 pounds...

 
 Dump it into a crock pot.  Remove the maxi pad.


 Add a can of this shit per pound.  Today, I chose the Embasa brand because it was on sale but there are all kinds of canned salsas or sauces in the Mexican food section.  They are usually around a buck so being the big spender I am, I got two.


Dump this on top.
 Add a few bay leaves. 
 I have no idea why. 
 I don't really know what flavor they impart but I am afraid not to at this point.  
I have become a slave to these little bastards.


Now comes the really technical part.  



High for three hours. 
 Low for five.
  Take the lid off if, after that amount of time, it's too liquidy and let it evaporate.  

Decide all this hard work has you exhausted.
  Catch up on American Horror Story and eat left over Easter candy while you 'cook'. 

Once your chicken meat is done, you're ready for the next step.

 Fat

Flash fry your corn tortillas in hot oil for as long as it takes you to tell your kids to stop watching Family Guy....say, eight seconds. 
Before you can do that, however, you have to pull your forgetful, perimenopausal head out of your ass and remember salt is not the same as oil.




Lay the softened tortillas on an assload of paper towels to absorb the small ponds of oil.  
Because it's all about healthy cooking for you.  
Pause for a moment and reflect on the twin pack of baby food prunes you have in the cupboard because someone sent you a recipe for chocolate cake and after buying all the shit, you realized those prunes were to be used INSTEAD OF BUTTER and that was just about as appealing as cannibalism.


Stuff them.  



Put a shit ton of vegetable oil in a pan.  
VEGETABLE OIL. 
 Not peanut oil or coconut oil or motor oil, but vegetable oil.
  Because again, you are healthy.


Shut up. 


Sew your little beauties together with toothpicks so all the shit doesn't fall out when you are cooking them in your Healthy and Not Going To Contribute To Your Triple Bypass Oil.  


Fry them to a lovely shade of crunchy.



Drain them vertically in a bowl lined with paper towels. 

Side note: you are not hallucinating. 
 Those are chimichangas. 
 Because although daughter will eat the tacos, she much prefers chimichangas.  
Because of the chimichanga guy from Shrek 4. 
 Don't ask.  

The expression "pretty maids in a row" may pop into your head because you grew up in a hick town where one of the fun things to do was go cow tipping after drinking California Coolers.  This makes you think of Chris Farley in Tommy Boy and how he said that.  About the maids.  Then you wonder if he was secretly thinking of deep fat fried tacos because they are so lovely.  And pretty. At this point, you may wonder if clogged arteries are what really killed him and if you will too, suffer from death by taco.    Decide this is probably not going to happen, because you will be throwing some lettuce in your tacos to counterbalance.


Now, you will be super excited to dive into these.  But wait.  First, and I can't stress this enough, you must remove the toothpicks.  Don't be the the fucking moron who is so excited about the Perfect Chicken Taco that you shove it down your throat with such enthusiasm you have to dig out your old Water Pik to get the little sliver that broke off behind your back molar when you were acting like you were in a taco eating contest.
 And the prize was a lifetime of tacos.


  Enjoy these.
  Make them a part of your life. 
 I could go on and on about how wonderful these are. 
 But I need to put my Water Pik away.