Mexican chipotle chicken salad with avocado

With a little help from my friends: KANKUN chipotle sauce, Don Agustin tequila, and agua fresca de Jamaica from the Cool Chile Company

Summer's here and the time is right for eating salads in the street.

Or, you know, in your kitchen/dining room. Wherever.

Some people make a big deal about how the Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana (it was, you know).

What they don't talk about as much as that the chef, Caesar Cardini, was actually Italian, or that he was based in California but opened a restaurant just south of the border because the US had the whole Prohibition thing going on at the time.

But this salad weather we've been having got me thinking about a Rick Bayless recipe I've been meaning to rip off: chicken with avocados and chipotles.

Rick didn't intend this to be a salad. His recipe is more of a snack/taco filling. But I think this makes an awesome summer chicken salad, and shows you that Mexican food doesn't have to be heavy and stodgy.

Rick's recipe uses diced chipotles en adobo, which you can get from La Costena. If you do this, you have to dice the chiles very fine, otherwise you'll get random smoke-bombs while you're eating.

To make it easier to distribute the chipotles more evenly, you can make a chipotle sauce by combining a tin of chipotles en adobo, a tin of tomatillos, and a couple cloves of garlic.

I didn't have any tomatillos on hand. However, I did have a fresh bottle of KANKUN chipotle sauce, which is awesome. Basically, this stuff tastes exactly like a homemade Mexican chipotle sauce.

For the chicken, I poached some chicken breasts as I would for carnitas de pollo except I added some sliced carrot and potato.

When the chicken was done and shredded, I chopped up some romaine lettuce and avocados (do the avocados at the very last minute so they don't oxidize).

I also added some green tomatos (NOT tomatillos, which are actually not tomatoes at all but really a kind of gooseberry), because I have kind of a thing for Mary Louise Parker.

I don't wanna have dinner with you. You're covered in BEES!

I tossed everything together with the chicken, carrots and potatoes.

Rick Bayless says this should be topped with raw white onions, but I don't like raw white onions, so I made up a white onion version of Yucatecan Pink Pickled Onions:

Cebollas en escabeche

Ingredientes
1 white onion
1 habanero, fresh or dried
6 allspice berries
10 black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin
120 ml white wine or cider vinegar

Procedimiento

Peel and thinly slice the onion.

Make a 1 cm slit in the habanero. (You can use more habaneros if you like it hot!)

Put the onion, habanero, spices, oregano, and vinegar in a bowl and add just-boiled water until the onion is covered by at least 1 cm.

Steep for about four hours.

Drain the onions, fish out the habanero and, if possible, the peppercorns and allspice.

Transfer to a serving bowl.

I served the salad covered with KANKUN (which I used as a salad dressing - seriously, it worked!) and with some sliced sourdough bread on the side.

Sourdough bread is kind of like a Guadalajaran bread called birote, but you could use a baguette or crusty white bread or (of course) fresh hot corn tortillas as well. 

For a drink I decided to keep with the summer thing and make a traditional agua fresca. 

Aguas frescas are non-alcoholic drinks made by steeping something in boiled water. There are lots of aguas frescas. Probably the most famous is horchata, which is made with ground rice and almonds, but I chose the hibiscus flower water or agua fresca de Jamaica. 

You can get this from the Cool Chile Company.

Instructions are on the bag, but what you do is combine half the bag with 1.5 L of just-boiled water and 150g of sugar, give it a good stir and le it steep over night. 

The next day, sieve it and serve!

I decided to make mine alcoholic by adding a shot of Don Agustin tequlia!

Because YOLO!

(I can't believe I actually wrote "YOLO". I feel like such a douche.) 

Experimental Mexican Hot Toddy (version 1)

In Scotland we do this thing when the weather gets cold and you discover that you have a sore throat.

We mix whisky, honey, hot water, a dash of lemon juice, and some warming spices and sip it slowly until we completely forget that we were miserable in the first place.

This is called a "hot toddy", and I believe it has caught on in other countries.

A while ago it occurred to me you could probably make a Mexican version by substituting the "Scottish" ingredients for corresponding Mexican ones.

But wait: doesn't Mexico have its own certain already?

Mexico certainly does have its fair share of hot drinks, both with and without alcohol. However, Mexico has a very different climate from Scotland. Even in the dead of winter you're not going to be as desperate to curl up under a blanket with what is essentially a sweetened hot whisky and hide from the freezing rain and the darkness that sets in at 4pm.

So this is purely an experiment; I will doubtless have to refine it and perfect it some more before I call it a success. But here's what I've got so far.

The starting point is a one-to-one substitution of the original ingredients with Mexican ones. I also added some chile, because why not?

Ingredientes

Don Agustín añejo almost tastes like whisky anyway

1 tsp agave nectar (instead of honey)

1 shot of tequila, preferably añejo (instead of whisky)

3 allspice berries (taking a cue from the Yucatán) 

Lime juice (instead of lemon juice)

A dash of tajín or a couple piquín chiles

Hot water

Procedimiento

Basically, put everything in a mug and give it a stir.

If you're using tajín, sprinkle it on top just before drinking; if you're using the dried chiles, they'll need to be in the mug at the start so they can steep and release their flavour (and heat).

Result

Delicioso!

My initial worry was the lime juice: would it clash with the agave and the allspice?

It didn't. In fact, it was such a good addition I used more than I originally intended (about half a lime for one serving).

My second concern was the chile. I was going to make it optional. Turns out it's not optional. It really makes this drink.

You might think it's strange putting chile in a drink that's meant to soothe a sore throat, but as always, you add the chile to taste. If you don't overdo it, you'll get a pleasant tingle in your mouth that won't actually reach your throat.

Also, if you have a sore throat, chances are you have other symptoms of a cold as well. Chiles are full of vitamins and antioxidants to help you get well, and are the best decongestant ever.

What ended up not bringing much to the party was the allspice. I had high hopes for this, but it was undetectable on the palate. This drink was all lime, tequila, and chile.

In that respect, it was somewhat like a warm margarita, which led me to question whether it needs the agave nectar either. But I have decided to keep it in for now because it adds texture as well as flavour, giving the drink a somewhat more silky mouthfeel.

Next steps: try steeping the allspice berries to boost their flavour before I cut them out completely. And maybe up the chile heat as well.

Tequila tasting at Lupe Pintos

Tequila is one of those things everyone knows about Mexico. Or do they?

Last Saturday I took my MexiGeek crew (@Book_Love_Sarah and @EdinburghIsla) over to Lupe Pintos, the spiritual home of Mexican cooking in Edinburgh, for their annual tequila tasting.

I have a confession to make: although most of the time I'm enamoured of all things Mexican, my Achilles' Heel is tequila. I'm a whisky drinker, as in single malt Scotch whisky, which I drink neat (or, if it's cask strength, with just enough water to cut the noseburn).

It's really whisky's fault that I don't like other distilled spirits. Whisky sets the bar to an unreachable height. Really, how are you supposed to compete with something that's been aging in a barrel for 12 years or more?

Add to that, my only previous experience of tequila is some rough José Cuervo drunk from a shot-glass perched on the belly button of an inebriated sorority girl with no self-esteem (this is called a "body shot").

But the good news is Lupe Pintos' tequila tasting is just the thing for someone who isn't sure they like tequila.

First of all, Doug Bell, owner of Lupe Pintos, is the original MexiGeek, and really knows his stuff. He's passionate about all things Mexican, and his knowledge and enthusiasm really come through as he takes you from the more basic Casa Casco Viejo to the elite (though American-owned) Patron.

You learn the history of tequila (which is to mezcal what champagne is to sparkling white wine), how it's made, how it's actually drunk in Mexico, and the recipe for the perfect margarita. The tasting comes with some delicious homemade botanas (Mexican tapas, essentially), including the traditional diced fresh fruit and tajín (ground chile and lime salt).

But the two most important things I learned were:

• Tequila can be delicious

• Mexico takes the same pride and care in producing its national drink that Scotland takes in whisky

So did it convert me?

Well, I did buy a bottle of tequila: Don Agustin anejo (meaning it has been aged in a barrel for at least a year).

This was less intense than the Patron, and probably empirically not as good as the family-owned Herradura (Doug's favourite), but it was the one I liked best.

Leave it to me to go for the tequila that tastes like whisky!

The Edinburgh tastings are over for the year, but the Glasgow ones are up next. If you would like to know the truth about this world-famous but often poorly understood drink contact the store to book your place.

I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Other exciting news is that the shop is now stocking tajín and pilocillo (Mexican unrefined sugar). This place just keeps getting better.

Two MexiGeeks and two perfect Margaritas