Chicken Fajitas have long been a staple of my dinner table, but lately I’ve been making more of an effort to use less store-bought, pre-made ingredients. Here’s a recent recipe, please critique and post your own:
Chicken: Cut in strips and marinade in oil, cayenne pepper, paprika, chilli powder for an hour or two. Fry this up when ready.
Salsa: Take one third - one half a small red onion, 4-5 tomatoes, 1 pepper, 1 red chilli, fresh coriander and juice from 1 lime - mix in a blender.
Guacamole: Fresh avocado mashed up plus paprika, a little bit of garlic and a little bit of lime.
Serve with refried beans, fresh diced iceberg lettuce, grated cheddar, jalapeno chills and hot tortillas.*
Chefed this up tonight and I was really happy with it. The salsa is not quite there, though. It tastes really light and fresh with the coriander (which is good as fajitas can be a bit heavy sometimes), but I think it still needs some more body.
I actually cannot stand sour cream, so never use it. If I was making the dish for friends I’d include it, but would be clueless as to how best to use it - do you just buy a pot?
With the sour cream, just buying a pot is fine. If you want to get fancy, decant it into a ramekin, custard dish, or just a small bowl, and sprinkle on a tiny bit of powdered chili, cumin, or paprika. Spoon it up on the top of the assembled fajita.
If you want more body for your salsa, roast a pepper to remove some of the moisture and puree it to make a thickening paste. Just like adding tomato paste to a spaghetti sauce, only spicy and yummy!
Why grated cheddar? I’m guessing that since you said “pot” for the sour cream container and “coriander” rather than “cilantro” that you’re British. Am I right? I guess that Monterey Jack cheese and Mexican cheese are less common in British grocery stores than they are in US stores. Is cheddar really what you want here? Jack melts a little better than cheddar and has a nice tangy flavor that suits fajitas.
Does your marinade have any acid in it? Lime juice or even vinegar adds a great deal to the taste, just don’t put the chicken in for more than 20 minutes or so or else it gets acid burned and gets a wierd leathery feel. Tequila is pretty traditional in the marinade too.
As for the salsa, personally I don’t even consider making it without garlic. and What kind of Tomatoes? I like Roma, the right balance of firm/soft and acid/sweet. A dash of cumin is good too.
All salsa is better about 6-8 hours after it is made so the flavors can meld together, after about 24 it starts to lose something.
Agree with roasted peppers, You can do it at home on your stove or grill but there is nothing as good as the little road side stands with the bingo cage roasting on demand. If fact the standard recipe for Fajitas has a mix of quickly grilled roasted peppers and onions in about equal proportion to the meat before the other toppings are put on.
Thanks both for the replies - adding some lime to the marinade is a good suggestion, I’d not been doing that. Also, I’ve just been using tomatoes from the big supermarket, which are famously tasteless over here. Some more flavour is needed - think I need to pick some up from a fresh fruit and veg market.
The cheddar actually goes nicely with the fajitas. Hard cheese is one of the few foods we’re actually good at over here in the UK, and we have some outstanding cheddars. If you grate it finely it melts OK. You can get Monterey Jack easily enough, though, so I’ll pick some up and try it.
My marinade is whole breasts, soy sauce, lime juice, cumin and chili powder. Then throw them on the grill, let them rest a bit before slicing.
Guacamole: avocado, diced tomato, minced onion, lime juice, salt and pepper.
Sauteed sliced bell peppers and onions.
Warmed flour tortillas.
Refried beans.
Pace Picante sauce.
Build your taco with a schmear of beans, a couple of slices of chicken, some peppers and onions, a dollop of guacamole if desired, and a splash of salsa.
Fajitas are one of those dishes that its extremely hard to go wrong, and there have been some good suggestions already made. The best fajitas I ever had were from a whole smoked chicken with both pulled white and dark meat.
