May 2020

Tinga de Pollo Tacos

Paired with Great Frogs Field Blend White

Are you familiar with Tinga chicken? Then you have already experienced the wonderfully smoky and spicy chipotle chicken infusion! Chipotle peppers, fire roasted tomato, onion, garlic, spices and you have the ingredients for the best chicken tacos your pallet has ever experienced! The chicken can be prepared on the stove -top or roasted in the oven.

The wine of choice is Great Frogs Field Blend White.  This is the perfect choice with Field Blend’s light crispness and notes of citrus.  Disfrutar de! Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 thinly sliced onion

3 cloves garlic minced

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp brown sugar

 ¼ tsp ground cinnamon

1-14oz. can diced Fire Roasted tomatoes

½ cup chicken broth, a little more if needed

1-2 chopped chipotle pepper in with adobo sauce, chopped

1 tsp lime zest, 2TBSP lime juice

Garnish

Cilantro

Lime

Queso fresco

Cebollas encurtidas or pickled onion. You can easily make this ahead of time See recipe below.

Method

You will be browning the chicken in possibly 2 shifts depending on the size of your pan. Laying them as flat as possible to get an even browning, you don’t want to crowd them.

Pat chicken thighs dry with paper towel, evenly salt and pepper. Place 1 TBSP vegetable oil in pan heat to med-high heat. Brown on both sides, remove, set aside and repeat until all chicken is browned.  

Lower heat to medium temperature. Add 1 TBSP vegetable oil, loosen brown bits in pan and add sliced onion. Brown 7-8 min stir occasionally. Add 3 cloves minced garlic, simmer 1 min.

Add 1 tsp ground cumin, ½ tsp brown sugar, ¼ tsp ground cinnamon, stir, simmer 1-2 min.

Add liquid ingredients, canned tomatoes, chicken broth, chopped chiptle pepper with the sauce.  Bring to Boil and incorporate all the remaining brown bits at the bottom of the pan. 

Place chicken thighs back in pan to finish cooking. Reduce heat to med-low, cover, simmer for 5-7 min, turn chicken over and continue cooking for another 10 min or so. Remove chicken once again, set aside. 

Pour sauce contents into a blender and puree. Return chicken to pan.

Shred Chicken return to pan and simmer for 10 min or so, careful not to scorch. At this time you may choose to place in 350 degree oven for 30 min, covered. The chicken will now be tender and infused with deliciously spicy tinga! Remove from stovetop or oven, add lime zest and juice, stir. 

Place in your tortilla of choice, mine is stone ground whole grain corn. Garnish.

Cebollas encurtidas or Lime pickled onions

2 small red onions

Juice of 3 limes

1 TBSP avocado oil, or any mild flavored veg. oil

1 TBSP salt or more to taste

Slice onion very thin, place in bowl

Sprinkle with salt and a squeeze of lime juice.  Cover the onions with lukewarm water, let rest for 10 min. 

Rinse the onions and drain.

Add the lime juice, salt, oil and mix well.

Cover and refrigerate for about 3 hours or overnight, they will turn pink. 

That’s it! 

Notes: Tinga de Pollo recipe adapted from Americas Test Kitchen

Cebollas encurtidas recipe from laylita.com