How To Make Fajitas.

[ken worley]

For 10 ample chicken Fajitas:

2.5# Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts(4 large whole breasts)

8 OZ. Shredded Colby-Jack Cheese

10 Burrito-sized Tortillas

2 Bell Peppers

1 Large Vidalia Onion

1/2 Head Iceberg Lettuce

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

1/3 Cup Lime Juice

4 TBSP Liquid Smoke

1 tsp Black Pepper

1 tsp Granulated Garlic

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Cumin


In an 8-inch square glass baking dish, mix lime juice, liquid smoke, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic, and cumin.Blend well with fork.

Butterfly the chicken breasts so that no piece is thicker than about 1 cm.

Pierce the shit out of the chicken with fork.

Place the chicken pieces in the marinade, making sure they are fully immersed...Cover dish with foil, and place in fridge....Alow to marinate overnight.


Cut onion and bell pepper into thin strips....Set aside.


Finely shred lettuce and mix in bowl with sour cream, adding salt liberally, to taste.


On a CHARCOAL grill, while the coals are still VERY hot, sear the chicken pieces...The idea is to have them still just faintly pink in the center, well-done-to-nearly-charred on the outside.

Take them off, and put the onions/peppers on, in one of those basket things.

Cut the chicken into narrow strips.

By the time the veggies are cooked, the coals will be nearly dead.

Place the chicken and veggies on the top rack of the grill to re-warm.

Meanwhile, use a stove burner to warm a tortilla...Keep it moving, let it get warm and soft, with a few tasty black specks here and there.

Place some chicken and veggies on the tortilla, along with a stripe of lettuce/sour cream mixture, and a sprinkle of cheese.

Loosely roll, and eat, starting at either end.....Delicious.


NOTE: The marinade mixture above also makes a terrific glaze/basting sauce for a whole chicken, rotisserie-cooked or roasted...Just double all ingredients.

[xinjinbei]

Is there such thing as........Liquid Smoke?
What it tastes like?

[ken worley]

Yes, indeed...

ingredients listed on bottle: Water, Natural mesquite smoke flavor, Vinegar, Molasses, and Caramel color.



Indispensible for fajitas...mesquite+lime+cayenne+garlic+cumin+salt'n'pepper=
fiesta in your mouth, and on your chicken.

Believe, grasshopper....





.

[celtic_mike]

Liquid smoke is fine, but nothing beats the real thing. I know, I know ye of lower means like myself cannot afford a smoker so you have a couple of choices:
A) Use the one at work if you so happen to work in a kitchen (personal choice)

B) Rig one. Get creative. You can buy a cheap ol' colemann camp stove and have a blast making a somewhat-smoker out of it. And it tastes dandy, sir, dandy.

[anthrobabe]

Liquid Smoke isn't as good as the real thing-- but it is acceptable.

for about $50(USA $, 2003) check this out

http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html

the trashcan smoker-- made with a galvanized trash can.

[ken worley]

I will be making another batch of these tasty fajitas tonight...Along with sides of refried beans, spanish rice, and tortilla chips/salsa...




*drools profusely*

[ken worley]

bump.

I am getting hungry.

[Cardinal Fang]

For those of us in the UK who don't have access to such things:

How to make chicken fajitas without liquid smoke

Cut up 4 decent sized chicken breasts into chunks. Put in a bowl with crushed garlic, cayenne pepper, cumin and the juice of 2 big juicy limes. Leave to marinate for as long as possible, pref. overnight.

Slice an onion and a (bell) pepper into fairly thin slices. Fry until just getting brown and crispy round the edges. Add the chicken. Cook until chix is cooked through and brown.

Stick in a warmed tortilla with salsa, sour cream (or natural yoghurt), cheese, veggies, guacamole, jalapeno peppers or whatever you fancy.

Eat. If you've got mates round, stick everything in bowls in the middle of the table and let people help themselves.

Whilst we're at it - recipe for home-made salsa

Dice into smallish chunks - 1 red onion, 3-4 medium sized tomatos, a packet of radishes, 1 - 2 green chillis (depends on taste but remove seeds). Stick in a bowl. Add the juice of 1 juicy lime. Get a handful of coriander (cilantro) leaves (or two if you've got tiny hands like me). Roughly chop. Mix into the veggies.

Add salt, pepper and cumin to taste. Leave to stand for a hour for the flavours to develop. If you want it hotter, add some of the chilli seeds in after.

As you can tell, I don't go in for exact measurements when I'm cooking.

CF

[PantyGnawer]

Hmmmmm I just discovered this little Mexican shop down the block that makes tons of fresh tortillas every day. For two bucks you get this huge stack of still steaming hot fresh tortillas.

Hmmmm I've got chicken thighs in the freezer, and an onion. I think I know what I'm doing tomorrow night.

[Auntie Blackbeard]

Me freind frum the Rio Grande Valley in Texas sez yer all up about somfin whut duzzn't egzist.

Fajita refers to the cheep cut uv beef frum which the rolled-up food is made, so unless yer chickunz haz bovine anatomy, thoze ain't fajitas. Th' wurd "faja" refurs to th' diafram muscle of th steer, or th' 'skirt steak' in th' US. Chikuns doezn't hav um.

He be a stiklur aboot his foods, th' bilgerat. An' he won't ship me any uv them, eethur.

[PantyGnawer]

'skirt steak'

Mmmmm. I cooked one once. Did it totally wrong, but it was still good.

The mexican restaurant I worked at had a dish called steak churrasco. Its awesome. I ate it like ten times before it finally dawned on me that it was skirt steak. They marinate it in something for like two days. Its cool because the muscle fibers run perpindicular to the direction of a normal steak. And each muscle bundle is surrounded in juicy fatty goodness.

Oddly enough they don't use skirt steak for the fajitas. I'll be using it the nixt time I make em though. Sounds awesome.

[Cardinal Fang]

Me freind frum the Rio Grande Valley in Texas sez yer all up about somfin whut duzzn't egzist.

Fajita refers to the cheep cut uv beef frum which the rolled-up food is made, so unless yer chickunz haz bovine anatomy, thoze ain't fajitas. Th' wurd "faja" refurs to th' diafram muscle of th steer, or th' 'skirt steak' in th' US. Chikuns doezn't hav um.

He be a stiklur aboot his foods, th' bilgerat. An' he won't ship me any uv them, eethur.

Technically a fajita is a generic term that refers to grilled strips of meat served on a flour or corn tortilla. It can be chicken, beef, shrimp or pork (this is opposed to burritos which use minced/ ground meat). Even more technically, it refers to one made with a wheat flour tortilla, where as a taco is one made with a maize flour tortilla.

CF

[Auntie Blackbeard]

He sez yAAAAARGH'll hev to talk to hiz uncle Sonny (Sonny Falcon) who first coined both the phrase and the dish in 1969 in Kyle, Texas, and at rodeos and fairs thereabouts fer yeerz efterwurdz...

(Ye moight chek wif that WickedPeedya. He sez it's got his uncle's noime in it.)

[ken worley]

For those of us in the UK who don't have access to such things:

How to make chicken fajitas without liquid smoke

Actually, liquid smoke is a replacement for grilling the meat over a mesquite-wood fire.

You can, through the magic of the intraweb and global shipping services, get either liquid smoke, OR actual mesquite wood, mailed to you, even if you are in england.

If there is no mesquite flavor, either infused in marinade, or by cooking process, then you end up with something which may taste good, but is NOT fajitas.

Your post should have read something like:
How to make chicken or beef soft tacos, with bell peppers and lime, if you are in england and are too indolent/lazy/cheap to order liquid smoke and make a fajita.