Thu, 17 October 2019
Chef: Lily Ramirez-Foran from Dublin's Picado Mexican Cookery School
Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2 - 4
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE TACOS:
500 grams Cooked Chicken, shredded
16 Corn Tortillas
Sunflower oil for frying
Toothpicks
Paper towels
FOR THE TOPPINGS:
Iceberg Lettuce, thinly sliced
Tomatoes, thinly sliced
Red onion, thinkly sliced
Salsa Tatemada, 1 portion
Creme Fraiche
METHOD:
Heat each of your corn tortillas in a dry, very hot pan for about one minute on each side, or until the tortilla is soft and pliable. You can heat them all up in one go and keep them warm by sticking them into a tortilla oven, or by wrapping them into a thick teatowel.
Take a warm corn tortilla and fill it up with a handful of cooked chicken, making sure that you spread the chicken horizontally along one half of the tortilla as it is shown in the pictures below. This will make the folding of the taco easier. Do not overfill your tacos at this point. Leave room for all of the other toppings that will go into them later on.
Using your hands, take the empty half of the tortilla and fold it towards the side that has the chicken, this will create a half-moon shaped taco and encase the filling. Repeat this step until you have all your tortillas filled and folded.
Grab a toothpick and 'stitch' the top of your taco together. This will help with keeping the taco together as you fry it. Repeat this step until all of your tacos are safely secured with toothpicks.
Heat the oil in a small, pan. In order to crisp up the tacos quickly and to avoid any sogginess, make sure the oil is very, very hot before you attempt any frying in it. Gently, lower a couple of the tacos into the hot oil and fry them for about 1 minute on each side or until they are golden brown and crispy. You can use kitchen tongs to prevent any splashes of hot oil. Once they're crispy, remove them from the pan and shake any excess oil. Set them on a plate lined with a couple of kitchen paper towels so any extra oil goes into the towels. Repeat this step until all your tacos are fried.
Remove the toothpick of each taco and bring them to the table together with all the toppings. To assemble the tacos, gently open the fried taco and put some lettuce, a couple of tomato and onion slices and top it all up with a good drizzle of salsa and creme fraiche.
These tacos are so delicious and quite quick to make. They're perfect to use up any leftovers of chicken from the Sunday roast. But you can poach the chicken too if you don't have any. Check out any of the mole sauce recipes to find out how to poach chicken if you want. My favourite salsa to go with these tacos is this Salsa Tatemada, it complements the tacos really, really well. Enjoy!
