Frijoles Picantes · Arroz con Cilantro y Limón · ~50 min · Dutch Oven
Tap any timer to start it · They run in the bottom-right
La Compra · The Shopping
What You Need.
Three pots, one plate, and almost no technique. The chicken braises in a jar of Renfro's hot until it falls apart, the pintos get chipotle and bacon and twenty minutes, and the rice gets lime and cilantro folded in at the end. The heat comes from the salsa and the chipotle, so the rice is the cool part of the plate and the crema and avocado are the other half of the truce. Start the chicken first. Everything else fits inside its cook time.
El Pollo · Chicken
2 lbboneless skinless chicken thighs
1 jarMrs. Renfro's hot salsa, 16 oz
1/2 cupchicken broth
1yellow onion, diced
3 clovesgarlic, minced
1 tspcumin
1 tspchili powder
1 tbspavocado oil
Los Frijoles · Beans
3 canspinto beans, drained and rinsed
4 slicesbacon, chopped
1/2onion, diced
2chipotles in adobo, minced
1 tbspadobo sauce from the can
1 cupchicken broth
1 tspcumin
1bay leaf
El Arroz · Rice
1.5 cupslong-grain white rice
2.5 cupschicken broth or water
2limes, juiced + zested
1 bunchcilantro, chopped
1 tbspbutter or oil
to tastesalt
La Mesa · The Table
12corn tortillas, street size
1/2 cupcrema or sour cream
1 to 2avocado, sliced
1/2red onion, quick-pickled
handfulcotija or queso fresco
1lime, in wedges
for Laurenromaine or cabbage, chopped
Three Sources of Heat, One Source of Relief
Renfro's hot is genuinely hot, and the chipotles bring a second, smokier heat to the beans. That's fine as long as something on the plate is cooling: the lime rice, the crema, and the avocado are doing that job, so don't treat any of them as optional garnish.
If you want to dial it back, use one chipotle in the beans instead of two and keep the adobo sauce. You lose heat but keep the smoke.
01
Primero · Start This First
El Pollo en Salsa
Braise it until it falls apart.
The Braise · Dutch Oven
Sear
Aromatics
Simmer
Back in the pot
~45 minmostly unattended
Thighs are the right cut here. Breasts go stringy and dry when you shred them, thighs get silky. The sear at the start isn't strictly necessary but it's ten minutes of browning that shows up in the finished pot, so do it.
A · Sear the Thighs
Pat the thighs dry and salt them. Oil the Dutch oven over medium-high and brown them in batches, about 3 minutes a side, without crowding. They won't be cooked through and don't need to be. Set them aside on a plate.
B · Onion, Garlic, Spices
Same pot, drop the heat to medium. Onion into the chicken fat with a pinch of salt, about 3 minutes until soft, then the garlic, cumin, and chili powder for one more minute until it smells like something. Scrape the browned bits off the bottom as you stir, that's the flavor you built in step A.
C · Salsa In, Lid On
Pour in the whole jar of Renfro's and the broth, stir, and return the thighs and any juice from the plate. It should come about halfway up the chicken, not cover it. Bring to a simmer, lid on, 30 minutes at a bare bubble. Not a boil. You want it lazy.
D · Shred and Put It Back
Pull the thighs onto a board and shred with two forks, then return every bit of it to the pot and let it sit in the salsa uncovered for 5 more minutes. This is the step people skip. Shredded chicken sitting out of its liquid goes dry in minutes, and back in the pot it drinks the salsa up and turns glossy.
♪ Press playLa Llorona· Chavela Vargas
Calavera
The sweet ones are for the living. The chile is for us.
02
Segundo · While the Chicken Braises
Los Frijoles Picantes
Bacon, chipotle, twenty minutes.
The Beans · Canned, Fast
Bacon
Onion + chipotle
Simmer
~30 minsalt at the very end
Canned beans don't need to cook, they need to be convinced they were made from scratch. That happens with bacon fat, aromatics, and enough simmering time for the broth to reduce and cling instead of sitting in the bowl like soup.
A · Render the Bacon
Chopped bacon into a cold saucepan over medium, about 6 minutes until crisp and the fat has rendered out. Starting cold gets more fat out of it. Leave the bacon and the fat in the pot.
B · Onion and Chipotle
Onion into the bacon fat, 3 minutes until soft, then the minced chipotles, the spoon of adobo, and the cumin for a minute. The adobo is where the smoke lives, so don't skip it even if you go light on the peppers.
C · Beans and Broth
Drained beans, the broth, and the bay leaf. Simmer uncovered 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until the liquid reduces and thickens around them. For a creamier pot, mash about a quarter of the beans against the side with your spoon and stir it back in. Pull the bay leaf. Salt at the end, since the bacon and broth already brought some.
♪ Cook toCucurrucucú Paloma· Lola Beltrán
03
Tercero · The Cool Part
Arroz con Cilantro y Limón
Lime and cilantro, folded at the end.
The Rice
Cook
Rest, lid on
Then foldlime and cilantro off the heat
This is the only thing on the plate that isn't spicy, so it matters more than rice usually does. The lime goes in at the end, off the heat. Cooked into the rice, the acid dulls and the brightness disappears.
A · Cook It
Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, which keeps it from going gluey. Butter in the pot, rice toasted for a minute, then the broth and a pinch of salt. Lid on, lowest heat, 18 minutes. Do not lift the lid.
B · Rest, Then Fold
Off the heat, lid still on, 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork. Now fold in the lime juice, the zest, and the chopped cilantro along with a little salt. Taste it. It should be noticeably limey on its own, because it's about to sit next to two spicy things.
Zest Is Doing the Real Work
Lime juice brings acid, but the zest brings the smell of lime, which is most of what you actually taste. Two limes' worth of zest in a pot of rice is not too much.
♪ Cook toVolver, Volver· Vicente Fernández
04
Cuarto · The Last Ten Minutes
La Mesa
Tortillas, toppings, table.
The Finish
Pickled onion10 min, made first if you can
Char tortillas
Serve hoteverything lands together
A · Quick-Pickle the Onion
Thin-slice the red onion, scrunch it with the juice of a lime, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar. Ten minutes on the counter and it turns pink and loses the raw bite. Rice vinegar works too if you'd rather.
B · Char the Tortillas
Straight over a gas burner with tongs or on a dry hot skillet, about 20 seconds a side until they spot and go soft. Stack them under a towel so they steam each other and stay pliable.
C · Put It All Out
Pot of chicken, pot of beans, bowl of rice, stack of tortillas, and everything cool in its own dish: crema, avocado, pickled onion, cotija, lime wedges, cilantro. Let people build their own. That's the whole format.
♪ Cook toEl Triste· José José
Dos Platos · Two Plates
Same pot, built two ways.
Everything comes out of the same three pots. The only difference is what goes underneath.
Chris
Los Tacos
Charred corn tortillas, three or four
Shredded salsa chicken, straight from the pot
Crema, avocado, pickled onion, cotija, lime
Frijoles and lime rice alongside
Lauren
El Plato · No Tortillas
Bed of chopped romaine or cabbage
Shredded chicken hot over the top so it wilts it
Extra crema and avocado, pickled onion, cotija, lime
A small spoon of frijoles if she wants them, no rice
Ask Before You Plate the Beans
Pintos carry real carbs, around 20 grams a half cup, so they're not automatically part of a no-rice plate the way the avocado and crema are. Check whether she wants them or whether the chicken and greens are enough.
La Música · Para los que se fueron
Songs for the dead.
01La LloronaChavela Vargas
02Cucurrucucú PalomaLola Beltrán
03Volver, VolverVicente Fernández
04El TristeJosé José
05Amor EternoRocío Dúrcal
Día de Muertos isn't a scary holiday, it's a dinner you set a place at for people who aren't there. The music matches: enormous, unembarrassed, sung by people who mean every word. La Llorona to start the braise, and Amor Eterno last, which is the song Mexico plays for the ones it misses. Loud, and no apologies for the lump in your throat.
Para Beber
What to drink.
While It Simmers
Michelada
The right drink for a pot of spicy braise, because it's savory rather than sweet and the salt and lime reset your mouth between bites. Build it in a salt-rimmed pint glass over ice.
1Mexican lager, cold
1 ozlime juice
2 dashesWorcestershire
3 dasheshot sauce
pinchsalt, plus a Tajin rim
At the Table
Paloma
Grapefruit and lime over blanco tequila, topped with soda. Lighter and less sweet than a margarita, and the grapefruit bitterness is the best thing you can put next to chipotle and Renfro's hot. Two ounces tequila, half a grapefruit's juice, half a lime, pinch of salt, topped with Topo Chico over plenty of ice.
For the Tracker
Macros.
Per Plate
Three tacos, beans, rice, toppings · 1 of 4
Cal
~780
Protein
52g
Carbs
72g
Fat
30g
A full plate with three tacos, a scoop of beans, and a scoop of rice. Lauren's no-tortilla, no-rice version lands closer to 420 with about 18g of carbs, most of that from the avocado and a small spoon of beans. The chicken itself is lean, so the fat is mostly the crema, avocado, cotija, and the bacon in the pintos. Ballpark as always.
