Chicken Tacos with Apricot Salsa and Fresh Guacamole

So I hope all my new followers love this recipe! I put a lot of though and hard work into these tacos, and they turned out so beautiful I almost cried at how delicious they were, not because they were super spicy… Thank God I didn’t put the Habaneros in! :X This recipe definitely has a lot going on, so I’ll break it down into sections. I made the guacamole, salsa, peppers, and chicken all separately so it’s a bit of busy work and a lot of prep! Easier if you’ve got two people cooking for sure!

Ingredients:

• 2 skinless boneless chicken breasts
• tortillas, or anything else you prefer to roll them up in!
• 3 apricots, halved and cored
• 1 large yellow onion
• .5 stick of butter
• 2 avocados, nice and ripe!
• 4 to 6 cloves of garlic
• 3 to 4 tomatoes
• 3 limes
• 2 to 3 jalapenos
• 2 to 3 red chiles
• 2 large green chiles
• 1 bag of blue corn chips
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper

First you want to prepare your salsa, that has to cool in the fridge for an hour and marinate nicely beforehand. What I did was take 2 cloves of garlic, 2 jalapenos, and 2 chiles [make sure you remove the seeds!] and dice them up nice and small. Set that aside and wash your hands quickly cause the red chiles tend to burn if you get the juice on you. DO NOT TASTE THIS, unless you wanna burn your mouth off or trick your friend haha.

I was in a huge rush, so I used a food processor to do all of my dicing. Just makes it easy, though I do like hand chopped better because the salsa comes out chunkier. Throw in your apricots, a little less than half the onion, and 2 tomatoes. Pulse and stop before they turn to mush! Pour in a bowl and sprinkle in a little salt and pepper, also a squeeze of lime. This is where it gets tricky, depending on how spicy you like your salsa; I like it spicy, so I threw in 2 tablespoons of the spicy stuff I told you to set aside. You might wanna try half or a quarter, start slow and work your way up. Or just make two batches, one mild and one hot! It makes a lot of salsa, you’ll be eating it for a few days, unless you’re throwing a party.

Put it into the fridge and then start with the guacamole! Guacamole is super easy, two avocados, half an onion, one or two tomatoes depending on how you like it, dash of salt, dash of pepper, and a whole squeeze of a lime. Mash it up or put it in the food processor like i did! If you wanna throw some spicy into you, add a little of the spicy stuff! Normally you could put cilantro, but I think it tastes like dish soap, gross. A good trick to keep it from browning is to save the pits and put them in your guacamole! I don’t know why but I think the mashed up avocado still thinks it’s a fruit and not about to be eaten… It works, so just do itttttttt.

Next I diced the large green chiles, which are basically just weird shaped peppers that aren’t spicy at all. I sauteed these covered in a skillet with just butter, and a super tiny pinch of salt and pepper. Once they’re basically soft, I removed the lid and turned it up to high heat to give em a nice charred edge look. I love the taste of burnt vegetables. Not completely burnt, but just around the edges! Set aside.

For the last part of actual cooking I just tenderized the chicken, cubed it, sauteed it in a little butter, onion and garlic and there ya go. Squeeze some fresh lime over it and tadah! Once the juices run clear, you know the chickens done.

Now you take all your ingredients, grab the sour creme and jack cheese at this point! And stuff your tortillas. A little letchuga, as the spanish say and you’ve got yourself some damn good tacos. The left over guac and salsa can be put on the table and munched on for hours! Or in my case, the whole entire time you’re actually cooking the food… To the point where you get full even before you eat the tacos and then stuff two of them down your throat and go into a food coma, haha.

What’s next? I dunno, I was watching Top Chef all day today and I heard about a lot of shit I need to do research on because I have NO IDEA what it is! Learning is fun, and I’m sure my next thing is gonna be Squab or some other crazy french thing ;} And what the hell is Molecular Gastronomy? What is the world coming too, just another food fad I guess. Anyways, it’s nap time!

Peace out girl scouts,
Justin Francis Kane
.