Very rarely do I crave fried foods, I like them, but they are not my favorite. Not to mention, I hate cooking them because I get to see how much fat they absorb and how much fat I ultimately eat. This has nothing with being health conscious, as I have no problem eating fried food served to me that was cooked by someone else. I just feel uncomfortable at seeing the process, or rather, at being part of it.
Yet, today, I had the desire to eat a fried chicken taco, and didn't really felt like leaving the task of doing this to someone else.
Since I had some free time I decided to go for it.
One taco felt like too little for a meal though, so I decided to make a lentil soup to go with it, and a simple radish salad to fill my plate visually (makes me happy), but also add a little companion to my taco. Something crunchy and salty. In the photo you will see some lettuce too, I wasn't planning on adding it, since the taco already had lettuce inside. But the plate just looked too sad with slices of radish and a taco, so I threw a little bit and seasoned it. Speaking of the photo, my apologies, it is badly framed and looks bad to me. Oh well, this is a post tagged as Daily Eats, there's not a ton of glamour involved in every living second that passes! Not in my life anyway.
The whole thing was very simple to make, even though it involved a lot of little things to be prepared. First I started by cooking the chicken in a pot by boiling it. Threw a clove of garlic clove in to add some flavor. I didn't salt it, but next time I will. I seasoned the taco in the end, so it wasn't lacking seasoning, but seasoning the meat itself would have worked better. The reason I don't, is because I usually only use the chicken I cook like this in salads, and I like to season the salad itself. Right? Wrong? Who knows. But it works well with salads, not as well in tacos. Which should have been obvious considering the chicken was the star of the play. But this is how we learn.
While the chicken was cooking, I chopped some tomato, Serrano chilies, yellow onion, and two garlic cloves. Fried the onion, garlic and chilies in a pot, and once they were ready, threw the chopped tomato in, let it cook for a while, then I dropped lentils in. I don't know why, but I like to fry my lentils a little bit with the rest of the veggies before I add the water. I feel I treat lentils the way my mom treats rice, she always fries it a little before adding the water. Seems to work!
Once I felt everyone made friends with each other in the pot, I threw some chicken broth in (I think it was a 1/3 cup), let it introduce itself with the rest of the vegetables and the lentils, and then I added water. Seasoned it, and walked away.
While my chicken and lentils were cooking, I shredded some lettuce, which is very important for what I had in mind with this taco, and I made some pico de gallo. I didn't set aside extra tomato or chopped onions for this because I suck at planning ahead sometimes, so I had to chop it again. In case you don't know what pico de gallo is, the way my family makes it, is as follows: Tomato, onion, serrano chilie, cilantro, salt and pepper. That's it. Nothing fancy, yet packed with so much flavor. Great for tacos, or to just top your grilled chicken with. Some people add lime, I don't care for that.
I did add lime to the other side I made, which was my little radish salad. I really felt I needed something on my plate to accompany my lonely taco (I made four tacos for my family, but I only ate one, I only wanted one). Very simple, yet very yummy and it actually accompanied my taco quite well. All I did was cut radish in slices, added lime juice, seasoned it and walked away.
Delicious daily life cooking doesn't have to be complicated,. I don't think. Sure, it could be fancier, but I'll fancy it up on a Sunday!
Soon after this everything was ready. Well, the lentils were not quite ready, I tasted them and felt they needed something else so I dropped some butter in them, unsalted butter. Like I said, I'm not that health conscious when I'm on a mission to satisfy my palate. The butter just added something glorious to these already good lentils. I loved it. Anyway, I let the butter make friends with the other ingredients and in the mean time shredded my chicken. By the way, I used chicken breast for this, in fact, I wouldn't use anything else. Unless you cooked in the oven a whole chicken and have dark meat laying around you won't eat, then, hey, make a taco out of it!
Do you remember how I mentioned that I threw a garlic clove in the pot I boiled my chicken in? Well, I smashed it and mixed it in with the chicken. Mmmm! I seasoned the chicken after it was shredded, and I did something that I don't think I have ever done before. I fried a taco. I also did something wrong because it absorbed all of the oil I put on the pan and I cussed twice about it before I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to not give a care.
I am told I need to fry stuff at higher temperatures for a less amount of time. Lesson learned!
There was mention that I don't fry stuff often right? Well, that was an inaccurate statement. I have never fried anything until now.
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I had a very specific vision as to how I wanted to build this taco, and it was as follows: Add the shredded lettuce first, top it with sour cream, add pico de gallo, add the home made salsa that was laying in my fridge (over kill? hah! Not at all), season it, and enjoy the beautiful sight before taking a bite. I actually did do that...
It was, in the end, a very fulfilling meal, and not as painful to make as I thought it'd be. The lentils were delicious, and the taco was perfectly crunchy. And that radish salad? It was the most perfect companion a taco can dream for (well maybe a cucumber salad would have been too!). Technically you can add it in the taco... but, like I said, the plate was lonely! The playground needed more kids!
It also was very fast meal to prepare, I think typing this blog entry is taking me longer than it actually took me to prepare my food, eat it, and clean my kitchen. I spent about 1.3 hours doing all that, and I'm about to hit the same length of time now typing this.
So, this is my second entry now, and I realize that I have not written ingredient lists, or even really details about how to make what I make. And to be honest, I don't think I will. I don't really find it attractive, or that interesting, my main intent is that out of my wall-o-text with a tiny picture in the corner, comes inspirations as to what to eat, and nothing more. But then again, so far these two things have been simple enough they don't require much explanation at all. The format may change in the presence of more complicated stuff!
Until then, go satisfy your palate with something yummy. Mmm!
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