Healthy Recipe Ecstasy

Chicken & Chorizo Curry Tacos

May 18, 2013 No comments

What do you get when you cross my Chicken Curry with Chorizo and my Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Spicy Lime Cabbage Slaw? You get surprisingly amazing Chicken & Chorizo Curry Tacos.

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Last night, we were faced with that dreaded decision. Do we go out to eat or do we make use of the hodgepodge of leftovers in the fridge? You know how it is. You don’t have quite enough leftovers from any particular dish to make a full meal, let alone two full meals. But there are enough leftovers sitting around your fridge in Tupperware that you feel bad going out to eat, and you know if you don’t eat those leftovers soon, they will likely end up going bad, and, ultimately, you will have “wasted food” guilt.

So, I made an executive decision. Not only were we going to finish off the curry and tacos, but we were going to do so with culinary style.

Here’s how it worked. We ate the black bean tacos per the usual instructions. However, with the curry, I decided to get a little crazy. I took the leftover curry (a mixture of chicken thigh, chorizo, some potato that Alasdair had thrown in, cherry tomatoes and sauce) and I shredded it. I took the chicken meat off the bone, I cut the potato up into little pieces, and I further diced the chorizo.

Then, I followed the exact same instructions as the black bean tacos.

I heated up a tortilla (I used flour rather than corn because they are slightly thicker and the curry needed a hefty wrap). I added a couple tablespoons of the curry mixture and let it cook for about a minute. Then, I folded one side of the tortilla over and continued cooking until the tortilla was browned on both sides (about 30 seconds each side). NOTE: The flour tortilla cooks faster than the corn tortilla.

THEN, for the piece de la resistance (I love saying that), I added the spicy lime cabbage slaw to the tacos.

And, you know what? It was good. Really good. I mean, almost better than the black bean tacos good. So good that Alasdair said, you should really keep going with this fusion taco thing.

So I will. Keep the fusion taco thing going, that is. I’ve already made Cooking Light’s Korean-Style Beef Tacos for you, and my California-style Tuna Tacos are the most requested dish in our house. I have a theory that just about anything stuffed into a tortilla shell will come out amazing. Ok, maybe not cereal. But, sometime, in the not so distant future, I will test that theory by making curry tacos, Italian tacos, maybe even French tacos (yes, I know, the equivalent of a French taco is probably a crepe but we’re talking tortilla here….) Anyways, the sky is the limit!

Until, then, if you make my Black Bean Tacos and Chicken Curry with Chorizo in the same week and have leftovers, don’t be afraid to go wild. You just might discover something amazing.

Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Spicy Lime Cabbage Slaw

May 17, 2013 No comments

It’s been nearly two weeks since our Cinco de Mayo party, which, in the world of pantry and fridge, can be a lifetime. Despite the amount of time that has passed since our fiesta, the limes are still rolling deep on the counter. The black bean cans are still standing strong in the pantry. The tortillas are still stacked up in the fridge and the cabbage is still taking up its hulking residence in the produce drawer. How are all these ingredients still fresh, you ask? I honestly have no idea. Sure, tortillas stay good for a while, but the cabbage should be brown and soggy by now. Instead, it’s going strong just waiting for its next home inside some crispy taco dish.

This past week, Alasdair put a bug in my ear about cleaning out the kitchen and using the ingredients we already had to make dinners. And, by bug, I mean he is borderline prohibiting me from returning to the grocery store until these items have disappeared from the shelves and counters into our hungry bellies.

So, in a panic and anticipating horrible grocery store withdrawal, I Googled lime, cabbage and black bean recipes. One recipe in particular kept popping up — Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw. It was on bonappetit.com, smittenkitchen.com, and epicurious.com just to name a few. It sounded like a fantastic combination but, according to Smitten Kitchen, a trusted source, the recipe was nothing to write home about. I saw the problem immediately. Great idea, but poorly implemented. The base was there but it needed a little pizzazz in the form of some additional herbs and spices and a little more love.

I was hesitant to add another one of these black bean taco recipes to the web, but the HRx version is so delicious and full of salty, tangy, spicy, zesty, creamy (how many more adjectives can I add?) flavor that I figured I had to share it with the masses.

Healthy Recipe Ecstasy? Gluten-free? Check! Vegetarian? Check! Low in fat and sugar? Check! Better than the original Bon Appetit version? I can’t say for sure since I never tasted the original version but based on common sense I’m going to give myself a check. The original version has black beans mashed together with just cumin. Black beans are amazing in any form, but when they are the main part of the dish, I think they need a little dressing up. That’s why my tacos include an even easier version of my Easy Refried Beans which I’ve cooked and mashed with various spices.

The original version of these tacos uses a coleslaw mix. My version uses a creamy, spicy cabbage slaw that combines the heat of the jalapeno with tangy yogurt and zesty lime.

And my version includes tons of extra lime juice for the sole purpose of clearing those limes out of our kitchen. This recipe is slightly more time-consuming than the Bon Appetit recipe but the taste and flavor far outweigh any increase in time. At least in my not so humble opinion….

Get the recipe….

Chicken Curry with Chorizo

May 14, 2013 No comments

I love the alliteration in the title of this dish: Chicken Curry with Chorizo. Almost as much as I love the fact that it includes chorizo - my recent obsession. The idea for this recipe came from a food-related listserv that I belong to called, “Tasting Table.” I’ve been getting the Tasting Table emails for months – new recipe ideas nearly every day. And, true to form, I have been reading each recipe, drooling over its contents, filing the recipe away in an email folder and, then, promptly forgetting about it. Until this week when I decided to skim through my compilation of Tasting Table recipes and came across a recipe for Portuguese Chicken Curry with Chorizo and Olives which Tasting Table adapted from Abraham Conlon of Fat Rice in Chicago. With curry and olives it looked like the perfect dish for my future hubby. However, as I’m not a huuuuge curry fan, and I despise olives, I knew the recipe would take a little adapting to intrigue my taste buds. So I nixed the olives, kept the chorizo and lightened the sauce up a bit. It was the perfect compromise. Saucy and spicy enough for Alasdair but not too creamy and hot for me and my belly. And, I loved the toasted coconut flakes sprinkled on top so, of course, I added more of those.

Healthy Recipe Ecstasy? Curries are great for individuals with gluten and dairy intolerance. Usually served over rice or potatoes, there’s no wheat or gluten involved. And coconut milk is used instead of cow’s milk. However, curries are often loaded with fat due to the amount of oil and coconut milk used – coconut milk having a high fat content. To combat that issue, I used light coconut milk rather than the full-fat coconut milk called for in the original recipe and decreased the amount of oil. I swapped out the white rice for brown basmati rice to up the amount of fiber and nutrients, and I made a few additional modifications based on convenience. Unfortunately, my convenience modifications added a bit of fat back into the dish. For example, I used regular hot chorizo instead of dry-cured chorizo because I can never find dry chorizo. AND, I cooked the other ingredients in the chorizo fat which gave the dish a different color and consistency – almost like a Bolognese or a chili due to the extra meat grease and the red-orange color of the chorizo.

Alasdair said this dish reminded him more of a stew than a curry but I’m sticking with curry because it contains coconut milk and curry powder. If you want to cut down on the fat even further you can dump the chorizo fat as I’ve explained in the directions below. Either way it’s a tasty, filling and moderately healthy way to end the night.