Almost-Famous Chimichangas, Food Network Magazine October 2010
Um! These are good but so filling!
I don't think I ever had a chimichanga until Beantown Taqueria opened up near us-- everytime we go, G and I split a chimichanga and a chile relleno. This recipe was a copy/recreation of the chimichangas from a restaurant called Chi-Chi's which is apparently out of business now and took its beloved dish with it. G and I had never been there, so we have no idea how authentic this recipe is, but it is tasty.
The recipe doesn't take all that long (despite what other reviewers said, it did take me just an hour as claimed), because it starts with rotisserie chicken and canned refried beans, so there's just some aromatic vegetables that get cooked with spices before adding the chicken and sour cream and rolling up the burritos. The weird thing about this recipe is that it has cinnamon though, which (when included in a savory dish alongside cumin) made this whole thing taste Moroccan to me, and I kept expecting some cous-cous or a raisin or something :-P Cinnamon and cumin is like the lazy magazine way of turning an otherwise normal dish into an exotic African one.
Normally chimichangas are fried, but this one is baked! But before you think it might be healthier-- it gets its crisp from being brushed with butter melted into oil... so it is all but fried. It was very tasty though, and pleasantly crispy.
I was wary of the sauce, because of the time that I made posole with canned green chiles and it was inedibley spicy. Now that I read the reviews of that recipe, they all say that it wasn't spicy at all. I think there is only "canned green chiles," but maybe I somehow grabbed the wrong thing that time. Anyway, the Chi-Chi's Mexi-sauce is basically pureed canned chiles (with some spices, aromatics, and broth), so I was expecting it to be super-spicy too. But... it wasn't. So, I guess canned chiles are not so bad after all. (now that I think about it, I probably grabbed a seranno chile instead of a jalapeno for that posole-- they're all poorly marked at the store).
Anyway, this was great, and we're just sad that tomorrow it won't be crispy. And now we feel a bit ... overwhelmed. I was famished when I started cooking so I kept nibbling on the chicken, and I was basically full halfway through dinner but kept eating because it was so good :-/
No comments:
Post a Comment