Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chipotle chicken wraps


I've got a bit of a thing for Mexican flavours at the moment and, in particular, an ingredient that is new to me: chipotle paste. For years I've been making Mexican-style dishes which, while good, lacked a really authentic Mexican flavour. Chipotle paste has changed all this. Made from smoke-dried jalapeno chilli peppers, it adds a fantastic smoky heat to dishes.

Over the past fortnight, I've made this tasty dish twice which shows how successful it has been! It is a fairly basic tomato-based chicken stew, enhanced by the addition of chipotle paste and lots of coriander. A very low-fat recipe which you could simply serve with rice. I preferred to serve it with tortillas, allowing people to help themselves to plain rice, guacamole and soured cream. The resulting wraps were rather messy, if I'm honest, but with lots of paper napkins on standby, noone seemed to mind.

Shredding the chicken is, I would suggest, crucial in the success of this dish. It somehow soaks up the sauce, making it more tortilla-friendly. It would work well with leftover roast chicken too, I suspect.


The original recipe is here on the BBC Good Food website, but I added regular bell peppers and doubled the quantity if sauce. The chipotle paste is fairly vital to the flavour of this dish - I found mine in Waitrose and it is made by Discovery. I'm looking forward to using it in other dishes - any suggestions?

Chipotle Chicken Wraps
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts
1 medium red onion
1 large yellow bell pepper (or green, or red, or a mix!)
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp dark brown sugar
2 heaped teaspoons of chipotle paste (or more, if you like it spicy)
800g tinned chopped tomatoes
Fresh coriander
Small bunch spring onions

To serve:
Corn or flour tortillas (2 per person would be a 'sensible' suggestion, but you may find that hungry people want more! We managed 3 each.)
Guacamole
Soured cream

1. Chop onions into small pieces and fry in a little oil until soft and starting to turn golden. Slice the peppers and add to the pan, frying until starting to soften. Finely chop or crush the garlic and add this for the final minute or two.

2. Add the sugar and chipotle paste to the pan and stir well to coat. Pour in the tomatoes and then add the chicken breasts (whole and unbrowned). Cover with the tomatoey sauce as best you can and simmer gently for 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Note: you can do this in the oven too. Stir occasionally and add a little water or stock if the sauce is drying out.

3. When the chicken is cooked, remove from the sauce to a plate and shred with two forks. Stir the shredded chicken back into the sauce and heat through.


4. Serve, scattered with plenty of coriander and chopped spring onions, either with rice or with rice, tortillas, guacamole and soured cream (and anything else that takes your fancy!).

7 comments:

Kerri said...

Oooh, that sounds interesting. I'll have a look for that next time I'm in Waitrose. I like the sound of the messy tortillas too, the best type in my opinion! Good to know they're low fat, am typically on a new year health kick and am struggling to come up with interesting things to cook.

We make a chilli sauce that we often use for leftover pork, I bet your stuff would work well in something like that.

Love your spoons, I think of you every time I use my Emma Bridgewater bowl!

Helen @ Fuss Free Flavours said...

They look delicious Antonia.

I was trying to work out what the views on your table mats are of!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I am a big fan of chipotles in adobo sauce and whenever I find them at the market pick up several cans.

Mary Bergfeld said...

I really like this recipe, Antonia. I make my own chipotle paste by mashing a can of chipotles in adobo sauce once its opened. It stays for months in the fridge. This is my first visit to your blog and I must tell you how much I enjoyed poking around. I really like the food and recipes you feature here and I'll definitely be back. Have a great day. Blessings...Mary.

Abitofafoodie said...

Kerri - Yes - think it would be great with pork. And also stirred into a chilli con carne too perhaps. The spoons were a Christmas present - I love them too!

Helen - They are pictures of Edinburgh. I lived there for five years.

Val - I don't think I've tried adobo sauce. I shall have to look out for it. Our supermarkets are only just cottoning on to the variety of Mexican and Tex Mex ingredients.

Mary - Welcome! Good to hear that I could recreate something similar myself - I shall have to look out for adobo sauce as I've not seen it here.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, interesting. What is this chipotle paste and how can I get my hands on some?

Lucy said...

I've not tried much Mexican food but judging from this post, I've been missing out! Sounds so tasty :)