[Music Playing}
So today I'm going to show you how to make a crispy corn tostada with Ancho Chicken Carnitas, sour cream and a Spicy Green Grape Salsa.
So, lots of combination of flavors here.
But the pairing of the Ancho Chicken with a little simple mole, along with the green grape salsa - is excellent.
So, let's take a look at our components.
And we're going to go ahead and make a quick mole.
So, we've done a lot of the work ahead of time. So, we have our Anchos, that have been toasted, asado - which means dry toast....
Our onions, garlic, and our tomatoes, and peanuts, we have a little bit of chipotle pepper
bread, cinnamon, All Spice, bay leaf, and chicken stock. Those are all the flavor components.
I want to talk, really briefly, about Asado, which is "toasting dry."
So in a cast iron pan, without any oil, I took all of my vegetables and toasted them dry until they started to bloom.
Took the seeds out. Took the stem out.
And this is the first component for our mole.
So, mole is very simple. Once you've done all the work of the toasting, we're going to blend it up. And then cook it.
So, the Anchos that have been "asado," toasted dry, soaked in hot water.... I'll save that.....
And then we're gonna go ahead and take our white onion
Our garlic cloves
Our tomato
And we're gonna purée this.
And that's the beginning of the mole.
[Blender sound]
Alright, so the other components that I want to add to this
are the toasted peanuts
our chipotle pepper
and a little bit of torn bread.
And some chicken stock.
I'm gonna add a couple cups of the three cups first, and I'll save one cup aside.
[Sound of blender]
Okay, so a couple more flavor profiles are added here. I have a small pinch of cinnamon.
About half a teaspoon [of cinnamon] and about 1/8 teaspoon of All Spice.
[Sound of blender]
Okay. So that's the base mole.
Okay, so I'm using chicken thighs because that's better for braising. So we're gonna do a simple season. With salt.
Some vegetable oil or canola oil in the pan.
I'm gonna get some nice color on these before I add the mole.
[Sizzling sound]
Okay, I'm gonna flip these.
And, uh... Now I'm gonna go ahead and get a little color on the backside.
Okay, I'm just gonna remove these.
They're not completely cooked yet. I want to braise them in the Mole.
But now is when I want to add the Mole to the pan. I'm gonna add about a cup of Mole.
My red wine.
My bay leaf.
Cook that down a little bit.
And now I'm gonna add my chicken back. And add a lid on it. And simmer it. For about fifteen to twenty minutes.
Until this is done.
Okay, so while our chicken is cooking, and as I said, we can do this ahead of time, I'm going to go ahead and make the other two components.
Our Green Grape Salsa and our Sour Cream mixture.
So I'm looking for Green Grapes that have kinda been brunoise - diced down.
Some red pepper. Brunoise.
Some fresh Serrano Pepper that have been seeded, and it's pretty fine.
Lime juice.
Olive oil.
And I want this to be quite small. So my cuts are precision cuts, so that they'll fit on top of the tostada.
Then I'm gonna go ahead and chop my cilantro here. At the last second.
[Chopping sounds]
Okay, so this is just a simple green grape salsa.
Once again, something that can be made ahead of time, the day of.
And the final component is a mixture of sour cream.
Serrano. And garlic.
So, the flavor profiles are very similar.
But they all have their place.
So just a cup of sour cream. A tablespoon of Serrano.
Garlic.
Alright. And I've taken, uh, little tortillas
and made them from corn tortillas, by just doing a.... little ring mold and cutting them out.
And then I just fry them in a little bit of oil.
Alright, let's take a look at our chicken.
Okay, this smells great. So what I'm doing here is playing off the sweet juiciness of the grapes
Adding a little bit of spice to it, and keeping that fresh and cold.
And then making this braised chicken dish that has a very complex flavor profile with the Ancho Chile, peanuts, tomato, onions....
....the touch of cinnamon....bay leaf.....
So, this is almost done. We're gonna let it braise for a couple more minutes.
And then I will shred the meat and that component will be ready to assemble.
Okay, so the chicken's had about fifteen minutes to cook.
And you can see how the Mole's starting to get thicker.
The color has become darker, so we know our Mole is cooked. We know our chicken's cooked.
What I want to do now is... remove it from the heat.
I'm gonna go ahead and shred it with a fork. And I'll bring that component back to build our tostadas.
Okay, so I've shredded the chicken mole here, a little bit.
And I want to season it with a little bit of, uh.... a very small touch of sugar in the end.
And a small amount of apple cider vinegar.
And a small amount of salt.
So, like I said, this can be done ahead of time.
But when you're serving this, warm it up. We're looking for the play on temperature....flavor....
So let's build a couple of these little bit sized tostadas. We're looking for about a teaspoon of our serrano sour cream.
And I think I'll do.... four of these.
So that's the base. And building our chicken carnitas here. That have been done ahead of time.
Then we're going to go ahead and finish it with our green grape salsa.
And this is, just a one-biter.
And I'm using the green grapes because it makes sense for the flavor profile. I'm looking for something cool.
Refreshing.
And pairing it with a little bit of the red pepper. For flavor and color.
Garnish with a couple of sliced green grapes.
Okay, so I'm just gonna do a little simple garnish here. With a little mint leaf. I think this is adding a flavor and a visual to this.
So there you have it. Crispy Corn tostadas with Ancho Chicken, sour cream, and a spicy green grape salsa. Enjoy.