Chicken Tacos
Last summer the Grumman ’78 started to challenge the ridiculous laws against Montreal street food. There’s been little developmental progress in lifting the ban, but the truck is still parked all summer at some sort of event or nearby the bar crowd letting out in the Mile End. It’s not exactly the easiest eatery to come across since it’s rarely in the same location and shows up at odd hours, so despite the fact that it looks like a giant gremlin, we hadn’t managed to check it out until the Just for Laughs festival this year before seeing Reggie Watts (a hilarious one man band/beatboxer/impersonator/stand up comedian).
Nothing against Grumman ’78, because their tacos are delicious, but one of the greatest virtues of taco eating is that they’re cheap, which is something that theirs definitely are not. We eat a lot of tacos here in the Sloan residence because it’s one of the few things that neither of us really get sick of, a stack of tortillas is less than 5 bucks and can be dressed up in a half dozen different ways before we’ve eaten through the lot. It just occurred to me recently that I haven’t really posted any taco recipes on A Food Year, no doubt in part because they’re not the prettiest things to look at.
Now that ice cream month is over and we’re in the pantry raiding (not to be confused with panty raiding) process of moving, I figured it was as good a time as any to rectify this situation and throw up a few tacos. That whole sentence was just a mess of euphemisms and potentially undesirable wordplay, I apologize. Anyway, today’s taco: delicious stewed chicken! All the pleasure of pulled pork in less than an hour.
For the Chicken
- 1 teaspoon cumin seed
- 1 whole chicken, quartered and skinned
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
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- salt
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat with the cumin seeds. Toast the seeds, shaking the pan gently, until fragrant, then grind finely in a mortar and pestle. Alternatively, just use ground cumin, but the flavor just isn’t the same.
- Rinse and pat the chicken dry, then season with cumin, paprika ,oregano, pepper and salt. Heat the oil in the skillet over medium heat, then brown the chicken on all sides, about 2-3 minutes per side.
- Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate, then add the onion to the skillet. Cook until the onion is tender, then add the garlic, tomato paste, sugar and chilies and cook a minute more.
- Return the chicken to the pan and add enough water to cover by half. Cover with a lid, reduce the heat to a simmer and allow to braise until the meat is tender enough to pull apart with forks, about 45 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the skillet, remove the meat from the bones and tear apart with forks. Set aside.
- Remove the chilies, raise the heat to medium-high and reduce the liquid in the pan to a thick sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then return the chicken to coat with the sauce.
For the Tacos
- 8-12 6″ corn or flour tortillas
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 1 avocado, pitted and sliced
- 1/2 cup coriander, chopped
- 1-2 limes, juiced
- Warm a pan in a 350 degree oven and set the tortillas on the pan to warm and become more flexible. Place a portion of chicken into each tortilla and top with tomatoes, avocado, coriander and a squeeze of lime juice.