Tonight's dinner was Pollo Ranchero. Pollo meaning chicken and ranchero meaning cooked in a spicy tomato and onion based sauce.
To make the sauce I sauteed diced sweet onion and several cloves of crushed garlic together in olive oil in a saucepan. I then added diced tomatoes, enchilada sauce, oregano, black pepper, adobo seasoning (a kind of Mexican seasoned salt type mix) and bit of mild chile powder. I let that barely simmer for a good 30-40 min, stirring occasionally.
Once the flavors came together, I diced up some boneless skinless chicken thighs and browned them on high heat in olive oil in a large skillet. Once they had a nice light browning on the outside I poured the ranchero sauce over them, stirred it all together, then reduced the heat and covered it. I let the whole thing simmer a further 20-30 min.
I had originally planned to put some beans in with the chicken, but my skillet was full, so I heated up a can of ranch-style beans separately. When the beans were hot and the chicken pieces thoroughly cooked and tender, I heated up my comal (a flat skillet with no sides designed for cooking tortillas that can be used like a griddle) and heated up some corn tortillas.
To plate the pollo ranchero, I placed two hot tortillas on a plate, topped that with a goodly portion of the rachero chicken and sauce, spooned some beans on top of that, and crowned the whole thing with shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Don't let the tortillas fool you, this should be eaten with a fork. It's been raining a lot here lately and this dish really hit the spot with the whole family with it's array of flavors, rich tomato-y goodness and familiar ingredients brought together in a slightly exotic way. Best of all, it tasted good too.
Notes: I used canned tomatoes, sauce and beans because it was a easy throw-together meal using what we had. If I made this again I would plan ahead and cook a pot of dry beans all day to use in the dish. Tomato products do very well in cans and I used canned versions often, but if you used fresh diced tomatoes you would definitely bring more depth to the dish. If I make this again when our tomato plants are producing I'll probably use fresh.
Some finely minced jalapenos or serranos added to the sauce would be great too, and give it a more authentic taste and heat, but not everyone in the house likes food as spicy as I do.
One thing to note when simmering any meat in a tomato based sauce is that tomatoes naturally tenderize meat and can reduce cooking time needed to make the meat tender.
