I'm Scott Samuel here at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley.
Today I'm going to show you how to make a spicy black bean and chicken tostada
with avocado, lettuce and sour cream.
It's a really nice recipe incorporating black beans spiced up with serrano, fajita chicken strips,
and topped with lettuce, sour cream, avocado and tomato.
Let's take a look at the ingredients.
So, the first step I want to make will be the the black bean base. And it's a spicy black bean.
I'm using canned black beans.
So, I'm gonna add a little canola oil to the pan.
And I'm gonna cook my serrano pepper that I have diced with the seeds in,
taking the stem off.
Serrano pepper......
garlic....
I wanna cook this down to get a nice a little bit of color.
Pinch of salt.
And then I'll add my black beans. And this is something that can be done ahead of time.
These are canned black beans that have been drained and rinsed.
And we're just gonna incorporate a garlic and serrano flavor to them.
We'll cook them ahead of time, cool them, and then we're gonna work on the chicken.
This recipe has been written for the fajita chicken strips that high-schools get....
And I've made my own fajita chicken strips here with chicken thighs, and chili powder, and cayenne, and Mexican oregano.
So, these are the main components of it. And then we're gonna go ahead and cut some iceberg lettuce,
chop some cilantro, a little bit of sour cream, mozzarella, tomatoes, and diced avocado, and hot sauce.
So, once we have the two main components together,
we'll work on the toppings, and then we'll build a couple tostadas on my fried corn tortillas.
All right, it's a little bit of color here on our serrano and garlic.
[sizzling sounds]
All right, we'll let these simmer for about five or ten minutes, just to infuse the flavor.
Break down the beans a little bit.
So let's get the toppings ready.
We're just gonna go ahead and cut, also known as "chiffonade," a little bit of this iceberg lettuce.
[chopping sounds]
So, this is something I want to do at the last second, so the lettuce stays fresh,
but once we have all these components, we'll be ready to assemble.
So I'm going to be using the lettuce, the cilantro, the cheese,
a little bit of tomato, sour cream.....
And let's go ahead and dice some avocado.
So you notice I'm not slicing in my hand. I want to scoop out the avocado.....
Do a simple dice on it.
All right these beans are almost done. They smell good. I'm gonna give it a pinch of pepper, and a pinch of salt.
All right, so the chicken fajita strips. If you get these pre-done, you don't have to make them.
But what I did is I took chicken thighs, and took the skin off, and picked the bones off,
and toss it with a little chili powder, cayenne, Mexican oregano, and salt,
and then just sautéed them on high heat.
Okay, so our beans are done.
They are hot. Let's go ahead and assemble one of these tostadas.
So, I like to go ahead and top with warm beans.
And if I was doing this in a high school setting, I would have the the beans and the chicken warm,
and then all of the toppings separate.
So that they can be assembled as the students come down the lunch line.
So, a little bit of fajita chicken.....
A little bit of lettuce....
Put our sour cream.....
And we're gonna go with just a touch of hot sauce. A little bit more spiciness. That's optional.
Dot with the avocado.
Put some mozzarella cheese and tomatoes.
Here's our spicy black bean and chicken tostada, with avocado, lettuce and sour cream.
And I've added a little bit of cilantro for garnish.
you