I have a few friends whose preferred protein is chicken. Some don’t like the taste of red meat while others aspire to be vegetarians but can’t wean themselves from animal protein. My friend Jerry (RIP) used to say that chickens were so dumb that he regarded them as a vegetable. My own predilections tend toward lamb, kid goat and beef. Susan prefers pork. Both of us eat fried chicken (make mine dark meat), duck and goose.
I watched Pati’s Mexican Table on the TasteMade streaming channel a couple of nights ago. Pati was preparing chicken tacos. The chicken was a rotisserie offering. The taco greens included arugula with diced avocado, fried walnuts, fire roasted garlic, and diced dates. There may have been other ingredients too. I was making mental notes rather than writing things down.
I decided to riff on Pati’s ingredients rather than screw up her recipe. We bought a rotisserie chicken, some Medjool dates, and some arugula at the store. I prepared Pipian using the last of the tongue broth. The dish below shows a salad of arugula, diced avocado, diced dates and a sprinkle of toasted Pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds) from the bulk foods area at the grocery store. The chicken is smothered in Pipian (a Oaxacan sauce made of spices and pumpkin seeds). We had flour tortillas on the side.
The salad was excellent. The chicken was tasty, but I still prefer lamb.
