Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Chicken Tinga!

Hey, hey everybody. Good to see you again.

Finally getting a little sunshine up in this motherfucker. It may even reach [GASP] the upper 70’s! That shit is WILD.

Rambling about weather aside, I have certainly used the cooler climes and taken full advantage of the use of my oven.

Shit will need to stop soon but as long as the cool grey marine layer lasts? I’mma use that shit.

To answer your inquiries regarding just what the fuck our featured dish is, once again I’ll let the WIKIS do the heavy lifting.

“Chicken Tinga (Spanish: tinga de pollo) is a Mexican dish made with shredded chicken in a sauce made from tomatoes, chipotle chilis in adobo, and sliced onions. It is often served on a tostada and accompanied by a layer of refried beans. It can be topped with avocado slices, crumbled cheese, Mexican crema, and salsa.”

“Although tinga is consumed throughout central and southern Mexico today, it is presumed to have a Pueblan origin. In recent years this cuisine has been expanding across the borders and can be found in most Mexican restaurants.”

There you are. Information dropped.

This dish will again allow us to use the now very familiar, bone-in skin-on chicken thighs. It will also have slow simmered black beans as a side dish. Yes, it was Southwest vegan soup week for work the week this was made and this dish will also allow us to continue to build on our now very extensive Mexican food recipe collection here on Sunday Gravy.

Ready to get after this shit?

A’ight!

While I did indeed throw my own ideas and tastes into this dish, it was greatly inspired by the good folks at FoodandWine.com.

Chicken Tinga!

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

2 1/2 pounds skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tablespoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of coriander

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

3 fire roasted tomatillos

1 fire roasted jalapeno

1 large onion, thinly sliced

3 large garlic cloves, minced

1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes or tomato sauce

1 can of chipotles in adobo, coarsely chopped

1 cup chicken broth

Tortillas, cheese, etc. etc. for service.

Before the fiesta begins please take note: This motherfucker is spicy! Not blow your goddamn head off spicy but it has a deep, smoky, sultry finish. I dig this shit. If you want to dial it back, you may want to omit the jalapeno and cut the chipotles to half a can. I like my shit with some aggression but that’s just me and that’s how I roll.

We start the proceedings with the fire roasting portion of our show.

I started with the tomatillos first and well fuck, should have gone jalapeno first but check this photo out!

Full on portrait mode and shit. You just need a little char on these because they’re still raw and fresh, therefore they have a soft center and can be prone to a slight shall we say “bursting” possibility?

Meaning some serious splatter-fication shit could happen. Aw fuck it, it cleaned up easy enough.

Place your fire roasted things in a bowl and cover with foil or plastic wrap to allow them to steam for a few minutes.

Let’s get after the chicken next.

Pour some olive oil into a medium hot pan then working in batches start to sear the chicken. Season up well with some salt and pepper.

Five or so minutes later give the chicken a turn.

Sexy, sexy chicken thigh action!

Five minutes more and remove the chicken from the skillet for a bit. If you are working in batches repeat the process until all of the chicken has been browned.

FYI you can absolutely use boneless-skinless chicken breast for this and it will be great because there is so damn much flavor from the other ingredients. I still prefer the thighs but you do have options.

Slice the onion into thin rings and add it to the pan next. Yes, chicken juices and everything. Peel and chop the roasted jalapeno and get it on in there too.

Sweat these down for 5-7 minutes or so. Now about those tomatillos.

You will indeed need to peel these or at least try to peel these. Give them a rough chop after peeling then get them in the skillet next.

Continue to cook and stir.

Next up is a familiar player.

Yep, these are indeed becoming more and more of a regular around these parts and this particular dish is a goddamn showcase of why that is. Chop the chipotles up and they go in the pan next.

Get the minced garlic in next then add in all of your seasonings. Stir until fragrant as a motherfucker.

We finish the sauce by adding in the tomato sauce and the cup of chicken stock. Stir to combine.

Simmer over medium/low heat until the sauce reduces down by about half.

If you want a thicker sauce, reduce the amount of tomato sauce and chicken stock added by half. I’m cool with the thinner sauce because if you have the inkling to do so you could use the sauce as an enchilada sauce while using the chicken as the filling!

See? That’s some versatile shit right there.

Let the sauce cool a bit, pour it into a blender or a bowl if you have an immersion blender like my bad ass boomstick, then give it a blend

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take our previously browned chicken and get that shit into a baking vessel. Then pour that now blended sexy-ass sauce all over the chicken.

Shit. Mulligan time.

Let’s try using a goddamn baking vessel where the chicken won’t get lost while cooking in it..

That’s a bit better fit.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-35 minutes.

Ready for this next step? Hope it doesn’t involve you being all hungry and shit because we’re going to cover this dish and refrigerate it overnight to strengthen the flavors.

You’ll survive. Order a pizza or some fucking thing and just wait it out until tomorrow. Worked for me.

Next day remove the chicken from the fridge and let it get to room temperature.

Time to remove the skin and debone the chicken.

Go through the chicken carefully because there are some bones, joints and cartilage shit in there that would NOT be tasty on a tortilla.

Now pull the chicken. Yep, just like “pulling” pork.

Then chop the bigger bits into smaller bits.

Now get that shit back into the sauce.

Yep, this one has potential to be messy. Probably shouldn’t be wearing white while making this.

Get all of this into a skillet and warm it up for service.

Notice how the sauce has tightened up after resting in the fridge overnight? It definitely intensified the flavors too. 

Oh boy, this is gonna be great!

Serve along with some…. you guessed it. Black beans.

Get that onto a tortilla.

We’re using fajita size flour tortillas today but this stuff is fantastic on a corn tortilla with maybe a little diced red onion and some pico de gallo? Now we’re fucking talking over here.

Set your ass down and eat already!

Oh yeah. It does ALL of that shit. As mentioned before with the low smoky simmer and the richness of the sauce and the perfect chicken thighs. This thing? This fucking thing? It’s real damn good.

Remember that chicken tinga is basically a taco meat. Gussy up your taco to YOUR exact specifications. Make it your own. Feel like an enchilada? This shit works for that too. Wanna shove a big scoop of this into a burrito and use it that way? You goddamn animal! That’s fucking brilliant!

You know where this would really shine though? As a filling for tamales! Of fuck yes. You know how most tamales are all masa forward and the meat tends to take the back seat? This here motherfucker would climb over into the front seat, grab the fucking steering wheel and drive that bitch!

This shit is in charge. Add heat, take away heat, you get the picture. A nice change up from your basic ground beef taco filling. A real step up in flavor for sure.

There you go!

Think I’m gonna get my warm weather walking gear on and get out in the sun. Time to get some sunshine on my pale ass.

Have a great rest of your Sunday however you choose to enjoy it.

For sports you got a whole lot of baseball today and after that goddamn long ass All Star break that’s a damn good thing.

Be well everyone and I’ll see you again this time next week.

PEACE!