Rotisserie Chicken Wednesday: tamales

So, here is a confession on my last Wednesday of guest blogging: I rarely buy rotisserie chicken. And the times i have, I pretty much just make (or buy) a side and eat it as is. But I wanted to keep the rotisserie Wednesday thing alive while Janet is gone, and I figured it was a chance to come up with ways to use chicken that I might've normally cooked.

So as I was trying to think of something different this week, I was reading this month's Food & Wine, and lo and behold, there was a rotisserie recipe. And it looked good. I know i gave you the rellenos recipe a couple of weeks ago, but I hope you like Mexican. I do. This recipe from Grace Parisi looks pretty easy, and tamales are one of my favorite things.

Rather than cut and paste the recipe, I'll just give you a link to it (click here), so you can see the picture. (I'm legally allowed to put the recipe here, with proper credit, but there are issues with copying the photo. thus the rotisserie file shot above. I didn't have to ask anyone if I could use that one.)

Comments

Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, I considered myself a purist when it comes to Mexican or "Tex/Mex" cooking. However, I can't wait to try this new spin on tamales and think the Mojo flavored rotisserie chicken would work perfectly. I'll have to take baby steps though by using the traditional corn husk wrappers

[jim w.]

ha. on my personal blog, i posted an item a year or so ago on a meal i had at a restaurant in santa fe. i had a lobster tamal. a friend in san antonio read it and shared it with some of his co-workers who were mexican women who cooked a lot, and he reported they were HORRIFIED at the prospect of lobster in a tamal.

also, i went to a cooking demo once where a famous mexican chef was making a tamal-like dish -- uchepas? something like that -- and i think she made it with pork (it might've been chicken. let's say it was pork). someone in the audience asked if you could make it with crab. there were four women on the stage, and the heads of each them snapped up when she said that.

"no, you couldn't use crab," one of them said.

"why not?" the woman in the audience asked.

"because we use pork," the woman on stage said, with the "duh" clearly implied.

Beans, pork, chicken are the traditional ingredients because of economics. I'm betting chefs from Acapulco and other coastal communities use plenty of the more expensive shell fish in many "traditional" mexican dishes because of its availability.

Sure enjoyed your insight.

Thanks!